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American CommontoeaW. 

n 

EDITED BY 

HORACE E. SCUDDER. 




THE, MATTHtrtS-NORTHRUP CO.. BUFFALO 



Jtmcncan CommontucaItt)£ 



VERMONT 



A STUDY OF INDEPENDENCE 



BY 



ROWLAND E. ROBINSON 




< 0F Co*, 



'*** 



FEB 5 1899 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1892 



■sfi 






Copyright, 1892, 
Bv ROWLAND E. ROBINSON. 

All rights reserved. 



p c olQo2cff 1 / 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
Elecfcrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 



s > 



CONTENTS. 

♦ 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Highway of War 1 

II. The Wilderness during the French and In- 
dian Wars 15 

III. Occupation and Settlement .... 47 

IV. The New Hampshire Grants . . .57 
"V. The Green Mountain Boys .... 68 
VI. The Westminster Massacre . . . .90 

VH. Ticonderoga 100 

Vin. Green Mountain Boys in Canada . . . 115 

IX. Lake Champlain 132 

X. Vermont an Independent Commonwealth . 139 

XL Ticonderoga; Hubbardton 151 

XII. Bennington 165 

XIII. Subsequent Operations of Vermont Troops . 179 

XIV. The Unions 189 

XV. The Haldimand Correspondence . . . 203 

XVI. Unions Dissolved 225 

XVn. " The Republic of the Green Mountains " . 238 
XVIII. The New State 254 



v [ CONTENTS. 

XIX. Vermont in the War of 1812 . . . .269 

XX. Old-Time Customs and Industries . . 292 

XXI. Religion, Education, and Temperance . . 307 

XXII. Emigration 324 

XXIII. " The Star that Never Sets " . . . .333 

XXIV. Vermont in the War of the Rebellion . 340 
XXV. The Vermont People 354 

Index 367 



VERMONT. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 

Champlain, in the account of his voyage made 
in July, 1609, up the lake to which he gave his 
name, mentions almost incidentally that, " continu- 
ing our route along the west side of the lake, con- 
templating the country, I saw on the east side very 
high mountains capped with snow. I asked the 
Indians if those parts were inhabited. They an- 
swered me yes, and that they were Iroquois, and 
there were in those parts beautiful valleys, and 
fields fertile in corn as good as any I had ever 
eaten in the country, with an infinitude of other 
fruits, and that the lake extended close to the 
mountains, which were, according to my judgment, 
fifteen leagues from us." 

It was doubtless then that the eyes of white men 
first beheld the lofty landmarks and western 
bounds of what is now Vermont. If the wise and 
brave explorer gave more thought to the region 
than is indicated in this brief mention of it, per- 
haps it was to forecast a future wherein those 



2 VERMONT. 

fertile valleys, wrested by his people from the sav- 
agery of the wilderness and the heathen, should 
be made to blossom like the rose, while the church, 
of which he was so devout a son that he had said 
" the salvation of one soul was of more value than 
the conquest of an empire," should here build its 
altars, and gather to itself a harvest richer by far 
than any earthly garner. But this was not to be. 
His people were never to gain more than a brief 
and unsubstantial foothold in this land of promise. 
The hereditary enemies of his nation were to sow 
and reap where France had only struck a furrow, 
and were to implant a religion as abhorrent to him 
as paganism, and a form of government that would 
have seemed to him as evil as impracticable, and he 
was only a pioneer on the warpath of the nations. 

Although the Indians who accompanied Cham- 
plain on his inland voyage of discovery told him 
that the country on the east side of the lake was 
inhabited by the Iroquois, there is no evidence 
that it was permanently occupied by them, even 
then, if it ever had been. There are traces of a 
more than transient residence of some tribe here 
at some time, but their identity and the date of 
their occupancy can only be conjectured. The 
relics found give no clew by which to determine 
whether they who fashioned here their rude pot- 
tery and implements and weapons of stone were 
Iroquois or Waubanakee, 1 nor when these beauti- 
ful valleys were their home. 

1 The Indians themselves pronounce the word as here given. 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 3 

A fact affording some proof that the Iroquois 
abandoned it very long" ago is, that not one stream, 
lake, mountain, or other landmark within the limits 
of Vermont now bears an Iroquois name. Of all 
the Indian names that have been preserved, every 
one is Waubanakee ; and though many of them are 
euphonious, and those least so far better than our 
commonplace and vulgar nomenclature, none of 
them have the poetic significance of those so fre- 
quently bestowed by the Iroquois on mountain, 
lake, rock, and river. 

It does not seem probable that the warlike na- 
tion that conquered all tribes with which it came 
in contact, having once gained complete possession, 
should relinquish it. A more reasonable conclusion 
is, that the country lying east of Lake Cham plain 
was a debatable ground of these aboriginal tribes 
in the remote past, as it was more recently of civi- 
lized nations and states. 

Quebec, the town which Champlain had founded 
in I0O8, did not begin to assume much importance 
till eighteen years afterward, when its wooden for- 
tifications were rebuilt of stone. Nor was the place 
strong enough three years later to offer any resist- 
ance to the English fleet which, under the com- 
mand of Sir David Kirk, then appeared before the 
city and presently took possession of it. The con- 
quest was as lightly valued by King Charles I. of 

It signifies The White Land. It has been thought better to follow 
this, than the more common spelling, Abenaki, which has come 
to us from the French. 



VERMONT. 



England as it had been easily made ; and in 1634, 
by the treaty of St. Germain, Canada, Acadia, and 
Cape Breton were restored to France. Thence- 
forward, for more than a hundred years, these re- 
gained possessions of the French were a constant 
menace and danger to the English colonies in 
America. 

Advances toward the occupation of the country 
lying between Lake Champlain and the Connecti- 
cut River were made slowly by both French and 
English, though the tide of predatory warfare often 
ebbed and flowed along the borders of the region 
and sometimes across it, along the courses of the 
larger tributary waterways, navigable almost to 
their narrow and shallow sources by the light birch 
of the Indian while there was open water, and an 
easy if crooked path for the snowshoe and tobog- 
gan when winter had paved the streams with ice. 

One of the earliest of such French incursions 
into New England was made after the failure of 
the attempt of De Callieres, the governor of Mon- 
treal, to capture New York, and all the English 
colonies in that province, when less important ex- 
peditions were organized against the New York 
and New England frontiers and the Sieur Hertel 
went from Trois Rivieres against the English fort 
at Salmon Falls in New Hampshire. At about 
the same time, in February, 1690, the expedition 
under Sieurs Helene and Mantet set forth by the 
way of Lake Champlain to destroy Schenectady. 
Both expeditions were organized by Count Fron- 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 5 

tenac for the purpose of inspiriting the Canadians 
and their Indian allies, who were sadly disheart- 
ened by the recent descent of the Iroquois upon 
Canada when Montreal had been sacked and de- 
stroyed, and most of the frontier settlements bro- 
ken up. 

The wide expanse of pathless woods that lay be- 
tween the outposts of the hostile colonies gave a 
false assurance of security to the English settlers, 
while to their enemies these same solitudes gave 
almost certain imm unity from the chance of a fore- 
warned prey. In the wintry wastes of forest, 
through which these marauding bands took their 
way, there ranged no unfriendly scout to spy their 
stealthy approach, and bear tidings of it to the 
doomed settlements. 

Unburdened by much weight of provision, or 
more camp equipage than their blankets and axes, 
these wolfish packs of Canadians and Indians (the 
whites scarcely less hardy than their wild allies nor 
much less savage, albeit devout Christians) marched 
swiftly along frozen lake and ice-bound stream, 
through mountain pass and pathless woods, sub- 
sisting for the most part on the lean-yarded deer 
which were easily killed by their hunters. At 
night they bivouacked, with no shelter but the sky 
and the lofty arches of the forest, beside immense 
fires, whose glow, though lighting treetops and sky, 
would not be seen by any foe more dangerous than 
the wolf and panther. Here each ate his scant 
ration ; the Frenchman smoked his pipe of rank 



6 VERMONT. 

home-grown tobacco, the Waubanakee his milder 
senhalenac, or dried sumac leaves ; the Christian 
commended his devilish enterprise to God ; the pa- 
gan sought by his rites to bring the aid of a super- 
human power to their common purpose. The pious 
Frenchman may have seen in the starlit sky some 
omen of success ; the Waubanakee were assured of 
it when dread Wohjahose l was passed, and each 
had tossed toward it his offering of pounded corn 
or senhalenac, and the awful guardian of Petow- 
bowk 2 had sent no voice of displeasure, yelling and 
groaning after them beneath his icy roof ; and each 
lay down to sleep on his bed of evergreen boughs 
in an unguarded camp. Not till, like panthers 
crouching for the deadly spring, they drew near the 
devoted frontier settlement or fort, did they begin 
to exercise soldierly vigilance, to send out spies, 
and set guards about their camps. 

Assured of the defenseless condition of the set- 
tlers or the carelessness of the garrison, they swooped 
upon their prey. Out of the treacherous stillness 
of the woods a brief horror of carnage, rapine, and 
fire burst upon the sleeping hamlet. Old men and 
helpless infants, stalwart men, taken unawares, 

1 Wohjahose, signifying The Forbidder, is the Waubanakee 
name of Rock Dunder, which was supposed to be the guardian 
spirit of Petowbowk. Some dire calamity was certain to befall 
those who passed his abode without making some propitiatory of- 
fering. 

2 Petowbowk, interpreted by some " Alternate Land and Wa- 
ter," by others, " The Water that Lies Between," is the Wauba- 
nakee name of Lake Champlain. 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 7 

fighting bravely with any means at hand, women 
in whatever condition, though it appealed most to 
humanity, were slaughtered alike. The booty was 
hastily gathered, and the torch applied by blood- 
stained hands, and out of the light of the confla- 
gration of newly built homes the spoilers vanished 
with their miserable captives in the mysterious 
depths of the forest as suddenly as they had come 
forth from them. 

So were conducted the expeditions against Sal- 
mon Falls and Schenectady. By the first, thirty 
of the English were killed, and fifty-four, mostly 
women and children, taken prisoners and carried 
to Canada. The success of the other expedition 
spread consternation throughout the province of 
New York. Sixty persons were killed, and nearly 
half as many made captive. 

In the same year, 1690, the colonies of New York, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut organized a formi- 
dable expedition by land and sea against Canada, in 
which they hoped to be aided by the mother coun- 
try. Having waited till August for the hoped-for 
arms and ammunition from England which were 
not sent, the colonies determined to undertake it 
with such means as they had, Massachusetts to fur- 
nish the naval force against Quebec, New York 
and Connecticut the army to march against Mon- 
treal. 

The New York and Connecticut troops, com- 
manded by John Winthrop of the last named 
colony, marched early in August to the head of 



8 VERMONT. 

Wood Creek, with the expectation of being joined 
there by a large number of the warriors of the Five 
Nations, but less than a hundred of them came to 
the rendezvous. Arrived at the place of embarka- 
tion on the lake, not half boats enough had been 
provided for the transportation of the army, nor 
sufficient provisions for its sustenance. Encoun- 
tered by such discouragements, the army returned 
to Albany. 

Captain John Schuyler, however, went forward 
with twenty-nine Christians and one hundred and 
twenty savages whom he recruited at Wood Creek 
as volunteers. In his journal 1 he gives an account 
of his daily progress and operations ; mentions, by 
names now lost, various points on the lake, such as 
Tsinondrosie, Canaghsionie and Ogharonde. "The 
15th day of August we came one Dutch mile above 
Crown Point. The 16th ditto we advanced as far 
as Kanondoro and resolved at that place to travel 
by night, and have that night, had gone onward to 
near the spot where Ambrosio Corlear is drowned, 
and there one of our savages fell in convulsions, 
charmed and conjured by the devil, and said that 
a great battle had taken place at Quebeck, and 
that much heavy cannon must have been fired 
there." About midnight of the 18th, " saw a lighfr 
fall down from out the sky to the South, of which 
we were all perplexed what token this might be." 
On the 23d, having drawn near to La Prairie, he 
attacked the people of the fort, who had gone forth 

1 Doc. Hist. N. 3 r . vol. ii. p. 160. 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 9 

to cut corn. i4 Christians as well as savages fell on 
with a war-cry, without orders having been aiven 
but they made nineteen prisoners and six scalps, 
among which were four womenfolk," and " pierced 
and shot nearly one hundred and fifty head of oxen 
and cows, and then we set fire to all their houses and 
barns which we found in the fields, their hay and 
everything else which would take fire." Setting out 
on their return, " the savages killed two French pris- 
oners because they could not travel on account of 
their wounds," and on the 30th arrived at Albany. 

At nearly the same time the fleet sailed from 
Boston under command of Sir William Phipps, 
governor of Massachusetts. It consisted of nearly 
forty vessels, carrying a force of two thousand men. 
It was not till the 5th of October that it reached 
Quebec. Precious time was lost in deliberation 
while the place was defenseless, and then Fron- 
tenac, released by the retrograde movement of 
Winthrop's army from the necessity of defending 
Montreal, marched to the relief of Quebec with 
all his forces. After an unsuccessful attack by land 
and water on the 9th of October, the troops were 
reembarked on the 11th and the storm-scattered 
fleet straggled back to Boston. Such were the poor 
results of an enterprise from which so much had 
been expected. 

To remove the unfavorable impression of the 
English which these failures had made on the In- 
dians of the Five Nations, Major Schuyler of Al- 



10 VERMONT. 

bany, in the summer of 1691, went through Lake 
Champlain with a war party of Mohawks, and at- 
tacked the French settlements on the Richelieu. 
De Callieres opposed him with an army of eight 
hundred men, and, in the numerous encounters 
which ensued, Schuyler's party killed about three 
hundred of the enemy, a number exceeding that of 
their own. 

In January, 1695, winter being the chosen time 
for the French invasions, Frontenac dispatched an 
army of six hundred or more French and Indians 
by the way of Lake Champlain into the country of 
the Mohawks, and inflicted serious injury upon 
those allies of the English. Retreating with nearly 
three hundred prisoners, they were pursued by 
Schuyler with two hundred volunteers and three 
hundred Indians, and were so harassed by this in- 
trepid partisan leader that most of the prisoners 
escaped, and they lost more than one hundred of 
their soldiers in killed and wounded, while Schuy- 
ler had but eight killed and fourteen wounded. 

Thus, across and along the border of this yet un- 
broken wilderness, the hostile bands of English and 
French and their Indian allies carried their mur- 
derous warfare to many an exposed settlement, and 
kept all in constant dread of attack. 

Different routes were taken by the predatory 
bands in their descents upon the frontiers of New 
England. One was by the St. Francis River and 
Lake Memphremagog, thence to the Passumpsic, 
and down that river to the Connecticut, that gave an 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 11 

easy route to the settlements. Another was up the 
Winooski and clown White River to the Connecti- 
cut. Another left Lake Champlain at the mouth 
of Great Otter Creek ; then up its slow lower 
reaches to where it becomes a swift mountain 
stream, when the trail led to West River, or Wan- 
tasticook, emptying into the Connecticut. And still 
another way to West River and the Connecticut 
was from the head of the lake up the Pawlet River. 
Of these routes, that by the Winooski was so fre- 
quently taken that the English named the stream 
the French River ; while that of which Otter Creek 
was a part, being the easiest and the nearest to 
Crown Point, was perhaps the oftenest used, and 
was commonly known as the " Indian Road." 

All these familiar warpaths to every Waubana- 
kee warrior, with every stream and landmark bear- 
ing names his fathers had given them, led through 
Vermont, then only known to English-speaking men 
as tk The Wilderness." 

The treaty of peace between England and France 
in 1697 gave the colonists a brief respite, till in 
1702 war was again declared, and in the summer of 
the next year five hundred French and Indians as- 
saulted in detachments the settlers on Casco Bay, 
and that part of the New England coast. In the 
following winter a force of three hundred French 
and Indians commanded by Hertel De Rouville, a 
skilled partisan leader, as had been his father, was 
dispatched by Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, 
against Deerfield, then the northernmost settlement 



12 VERMONT. 

on the Connecticut. It was February, and Cham- 
plain was frozen throughout its length. Along it 
they marched as far as the mouth of the Winooski, 
and took this their accustomed path through the 
heart of the wilderness toward the Connecticut. 
Marching above the unseen and unheard flow of 
the river, over whose wintry silence bent the snow- 
laden branches of the graceful birch, the dark hem- 
lock, and the fir, or along the hidden trail, an even 
whiteness except to the trained instinct of the In- 
dian, seldom a sound came to them out of the forest 
save the echo of their own footsteps and voices. 
Sometimes they heard the resonant crack of trees 
under stress of frost, or the breaking of an over- 
laden bough, the whir of startled grouse, the sudden 
retreat of a deer or a giant moose tearing through 
the undergrowth ; and sometimes they heard the 
stealthy tread of their brothers, the wolves, sneak- 
ing from some point of observation near their path, 
but in this remoteness from human haunts, and this 
deadness of winter, never a sound to alarm men so 
accustomed to all strange woodland noises. Then 
they came to the broad Connecticut, an open road 
to lead them to their victims, upon whom they fell 
in the early morning when the guards were asleep. 
Winter, the frequent ally of the Canadian bands, 
aided them now with snowdrifts heaped to the top 
of the low ramparts about the garrison houses, and 
upon them the assailants made entrance. All the 
inhabitants were slain or captured, the village plun- 
dered and set on fire, and an hour after sunrise the 



THE HIGHWAY OF WAR. 13 

victorious party was on its way to Canada with its 
booty and wretched captives. 1 

Such warfare was waged for years, the French 
and Indians making frequent attacks on the most 
exposed settlements of the English, and they, at 
times, retaliating by invasions of the Canadian fron- 
tier. In 1709 another grand expedition was planned 
to operate against Canada in the same manner as 
that undertaken in 1690. But the troops, which 
under Nicholson were to advance by the way of 
Lake Champlain, got no farther than Wood Creek, 
where Winthrop's advance had ended nineteen 
years before, for while they were there awaiting the 
arrival at Boston of the English fleet, with which 
they were to cooperate, a terrible mortality 2 broke 
out among them, the fleet never came, and the un- 
dertaking was abandoned. In 1711 a still more 
formidable attempt was made to conquer Canada. 
But the fleet, commanded by Sir Hovenden Walker, 
with nine thousand troops on board, met with dis- 
aster in the St. Lawrence, and the land force, which 
again under Nicholson was to invade the French 
province by Lake Champlain, was not far beyond 
Albany when news of the fleet's disaster reached it 
and it was disbanded. Thus, as miserably as had the 
two preceding ones, this third attempt to conquer 

1 White's Incidents in the Early History of New England. See 
The Redeemed Captive returning to Zion, by Rev. John Williams, 
who was one of the Deerfield captives. 

2 In Summary, Historical and Political, by William Douglass, 
M. D., this is said to have been yellow fever. 



14 VERMONT. 

Canada failed, and a heavier cloud of humiliation 
and discouragement overcast the English colonies. 
But after the treaty of Utrecht the eastern Indians 
made a treaty of peace with the governors of Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire which gave some 
assurance of tranquillity to the long-suffering people 
of those provinces. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE WILDERNESS DURING THE FRENCH AND 
INDIAN WARS. 

By the easiest path, in summer and winter, of the 
larger streams, the English settlements were pushed 
into the wilderness, and where the alluvial land gave 
most promise of fertility the sunlight fell upon the 
virgin soil of new clearings, the log-houses of the 
pioneers arose, and families were gathered about 
new hearthstones. They were soon confronted by 
the old danger, for the Indians, jealous of their en- 
croachments and covertly incited by the governor 
of Canada, presently began hostilities, and the gun 
again was as necessary an equipment of the hus- 
bandman afield as his axe or hoe or scythe, and 
his wife and children lived in a besetting fear of 
death, or a captivity almost as dreadful. Though 
England and France were at peace during the time 
for the five years beginning with 1720, a savage 
war was waged between the eastern Canadian In- 
dians and the provinces of Massachusetts and New 
Hampshire. 

It was in these troublous times that the first 
permanent occupation was made in the unnamed 
region which is now Vermont. In 1723 it was 



16 VERMONT. 

voted by the General Court of the Province of 
Massachusetts Bay, that " it will be of great service 
to all the western frontiers, both in this and in the 
neighboring governments of Connecticut, to build 
a block - house above Northfield, in the most con- 
venient place on the lands called the ' equivalent 
lands,' } and to post in it forty able men, English 
and western Indians, to be employed in scouting at 
a good distance up the Connecticut River, West 
River, Otter Creek, and sometime eastwardly above 
great Monadnock, for the discovery of the enemy 
coming toward any of the frontier towns, and so 
much of the said equivalent lands as shall be ne- 
cessary for a block-house be taken up with the con- 
sent of the owners of the said land, together with 
five or six acres of their interval land to be broken 
up or ploughed for the present use of the western 
Indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring 
their families hither." 

Accordingly a site was chosen in the southeast- 
ern part of the present town of Brattleboro, and in 

1 Massachusetts gave 107,793 acres of land to Connecticut as 
equivalent for as many acres she had previously granted that were 
found to be south of the boundary between the two provinces, 
and which she wished to retain. One section of these ' ' Equiva- 
lent Lands" was on the west bank of Connecticut River, within 
the present towns of Putney, Dummerston, and Brattleboro'. 
(Colonial Boundaries Mass, vol. iii.) This fell to the share of 
William Dummer, Anthony Stoddard, William Brattle, and John 
White. " The Equivalent Lands " were sold at public vendue at 
Hartford, in 1716, for a little more than a farthing- per acre. 
The proceeds were given to Yale College, (Hall's History of 
Eastern Vermont.) 



THE WILDERNESS. 17 

February, 1724, the work was begun under the su- 
perintendence of Colonel John Stoddard of North- 
ampton, by Lieutenant Timothy Dwight, with a 
force of " four carpenters, twelve soldiers with nar- 
row axes, and two teams." At the beginning of 
summer the fort was ready for occupancy, and was 
named Fort Dummer, in honor of the lieutenant- 
governor of Massachusetts. The fort was built of 
hewn logs laid horizontally in a square, whose sides 
were one hundred and eighty feet in length, and 
outside this was a stockade of square timbers 
twelve feet in length set upright in the ground. 
Within the inner inclosure, built against the walls, 
were the " province houses," the habitation of the 
garrison and other inmates, and themselves capable 
of stout defense, should its assailants gain entrance 
to the interior of the fort. In addition to the small- 
arms of the garrison, Fort Dummer was furnished 
with four patereros. 1 There was also a " Great 
Gun," used only as a signal, when its sudden 
thunder rolled through leagues of forest to sum- 
mon aid or announce good tidings. On the 11th 
of October following its completion, the fort was 
attacked by seventy hostile Indians, and four or 
five of its occupants were killed or wounded. 

Scouting parties frequently went out to watch 
for the enemy, sometimes up the Connecticut to 
the Great Falls, sometimes up West River, and 

1 Light pieees of ordnance mounted on swivels, and sometimes 
charged with old nails and like missiles, or, upon a pinch, even 
with stones; hence sometimes called "stone pieces." 



18 VERMONT. 

thence across the Wilderness to the same point. 
Sometimes they were sent to the mountains at 
West Elver and the Great Falls, " to lodge on ye 
top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen 
eyes of the rangers scanned the mapped expanse 
of forest, when it was green with summer leafage, 
or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autum- 
nal hues, or veiled in the soft haze of Indian sum- 
mer, or gray with the snows of winter and the ram- 
age of naked branches, " viewing for smoaks " of 
hostile camp-fires. In July, 1725, Captain Wright, 
with a volunteer force of sixty men, scouted up the 
Connecticut to Wells River, and some distance up 
that stream, thence to the Winooski, which they fol- 
lowed till they came within sight of Lake Cham- 
plain, when, having penetrated the heart of the 
Wilderness farther than any English force had 
previously done, the scantiness of their provisions 
compelled a return. 

By the authority of the General Court of Mas- 
sachusetts, a " truck house," or trading house, was 
established at Fort Dummer in 1728, and the In- 
dians finding that they could make better bargains 
here than at the French trading -posts, flocked 
hither with their peltry, moose-skins, and tallow. 

When, seventeen years after the erection of Fort 
Dummer, the boundary line was run between Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire, the fort fell within 
the limits of the latter State, whose government was 
appealed to by Massachusetts to maintain it, but de- 
clined to do so, on the ground that its own frontier 



THE WILDERNESS. 19 

was better protected by a stronger fort at Number 
Four ; also that it was more to the interest of Mas- 
sachusetts than of New Hampshire to continue its 
support. Governor Wentworth urged upon a new 
assembly the safer and more generous policy, but to 
no purpose, and such a maintenance as Fort Dummer 
continued to receive was given by Massachusetts. 

After pushing their fortified posts up the Riche- 
lieu and to Isle la Motte, where they built Fort St. 
Anne in 1665, the French made a long stride to- 
ward the head of the lake, where in 1730 they built 
a small fort and began a settlement on Chimney 
Point, called by them Point a la Chevalure, and the 
next year began the erection of a more consider- 
able work on the opposite headland of Crown Point, 
a position of much greater natural strength. In 
the building of this fortress of St. Frederic, which 
was for many years to remain a close and constant 
menace to the English colonies, they were opposed 
only by feeble protest of the government of New 
York, though that of Massachusetts urged more 
active opposition. The fort was completed, and the 
French held the key to the " Gate of the Country," 
as the Iroquois had so fitly named Lake Champlain. 
Seigniories were granted on both sides of the lake, 
and in that of Sieur Hocquart, which extended 
three leagues along the lake and five leagues back 
therefrom, was this settlement on Point a la Che- 
valure. Northward from the fort the habitants 
built their cabins of logs in close neighborhood 
along the street, and sowed wheat, planted corn and 



20 VERMONT. 

fruit-trees on their narrow holdings. Flowers new 
to the wilderness bloomed beside doorways, and 
the fragrance of foreign herbs was mingled with 
the balsamic odors of the woods. Where only the 
glare of camp-fires had briefly illumined the bivouac 
of armed men, the blaze of the hearth was kindled 
to shine on happy households ; where had been 
heard no sound of human voice but the sentinel's 
challenge, the stern, sharp call of military command, 
or the devilish yell of the savage, now arose the 
voice of the mother crooning to her babe, the prattle 
of children at play, the gabble of gossiping dames, 
and the laughter of the gay habitant ; while from 
the protecting fort flaunted the lilies of France, an 
assurance to these simple people of the permanency 
of their newly founded homes. Here the Canadians 
tilled their little fields, and shared of the lake's 
abundance with the fish - hawks and the otter, 
hunted the deer and moose, and trapped the fur- 
<bearing animals in the broad forest, and at the bid- 
ding of their masters went forth with their painted 
allies, the Waubanakees, on bloody forays against 
the English. 

When in 1744 war was again declared between 
England and France, the English frontier settle- 
ments soon began to suffer from the advantage their 
enemies possessed in a stronghold from which they 
were so easily reached. During the next year they 
were frequently harassed by small parties, and in 
August, 1746, Vaudreuil set forth from Fort St. 
Frederic with an army of seven hundred French and 



THE WILDERNESS. 21 

Indians to attack Fort Massachusetts, then the 
most advanced post in the province, whose name had 
been given it. 1 There were but thirty-three per- 
sons in the garrison, including women and children, 
but Colonel Hawkes bravely defended the place 
with his insignificant force for twenty-eight hours, 
when the supply of ammunition was exhausted and 
he surrendered, with the stipulation that none of 
his people should be delivered to the Indians. Yet 
in spite of this, soon after the capitulation, Vau- 
dreuil gave up one half of them to the savages, who 
thereupon at once killed a prisoner who was unable 
to travel. 

After the capture of Louisburg by the force of 
New England troops which he had organized, Gov- 
ernor Shirley of Massachusetts proposed a plan for 
the conquest of Canada, in which a fleet and army 
promised by the mother country were to attack 
Quebec, while the colonial troops were to march 
against Fort St. Frederic. 

While active preparations for this enterprise 
were being made, the colonies were alarmed by news 
of the arrival at Nova Scotia of a French fleet and 
army so formidable as to threaten the conquest of 
all their seaboard, and all their efforts were turned 
toward defense. When storm and shipwreck had 
scattered and destroyed the fleet and frustrated its 
objects, Shirley proposed a winter campaign in 
which the New Hampshire troops were to go up the 
Connecticut and destroy the Waubanakee village 

1 This fort was situated in what is now Williamstown. 



22 VERMONT. 

of St. Francis, and the Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
and New York troops, advancing by the way of 
Lake George, were to attack Fort St. Frederic ; but 
Connecticut declining to take part in it, the project 
was abandoned. 

The English had continued to extend their settle- 
ments upon the Connecticut, and had built several 
small forts on the west side of the river. These 
so-called forts were block-houses, built of hewn 
logs, with a projecting upper story and pierced 
with loopholes for muskets. Such was Bridgnian's 
fort in what is now Vernon, and which was twice 
attacked by Indians, and in the second attack was 
destroyed. Some years afterward, in July, 1755, 
a party of Indians, who were lurking near the fort, 
now rebuilt, waylaid three settlers as they were 
returning from their work, and killed one Caleb 
Howe. Another was drowned in attempting to 
cross the river, and one escaped. The Indians 
gained entrance to the fort, whose only inmates 
were the wives and children of the three men, by 
making the customary signal, which they had 
learned by observation. After plundering the fort, 
and taking the helpless inmates captive, they pro- 
ceeded through the wilderness to Crown Point, and 
from thence to Canada. Their prisoners suffered 
there a long captivity, but were at length mostly 
redeemed. 1 

The most northerly settlement now on the river 
was at Number Four, on the east side of the Con- 

Dr. D wight's Travels, vol. ii. p. 82. 



THE WILDERNESS. 23 

necticut. Three years after its settlement, in 1743, 
a fort was built under the direction of Colonel 
Stoddard, the builder of Fort Dummer. It was 
similar to that fortification in size and construc- 
tion, but was stockaded only on the north side. It 
inclosed, as " province houses," the dwelling's pre- 
viously built by five of the settlers, and one built 
at the same time with the fort. The settlers con- 
tinued here for three years thereafter, during which 
they suffered frequent assaults from marauding 
bands of Indians, in which eight of the soldiers and 
inhabitants were killed and three taken prisoners. 
When the Massachusetts troops which for a while 
had garrisoned the place were withdrawn, the help- 
less people abandoned their newly made homes, and 
for months the divested fort remained as silent and 
desolate as the wintry wastes of forests that sur- 
rounded it. In response to representations made 
to him of the expediency of such a measure, Gov- 
ernor Shirley ordered Captain Phineas Stevens, 
with thirty men, to march to and occupy the fort 
at Number Four. Arriving there on the 27th of 
March, 1747, Captain Stevens found the place in 
good condition, and was heartily welcomed to it by 
an old dog and cat which had been left behind in 
the hurry of the autumnal departure. The garrison 
had been in possession but a few days when they 
were attacked by French and Indians commanded 
by M. Debeline, who opened a musketry fire upon 
the fort on all sides. Failing to take it in this way, 
the enemy attempted to burn it by setting fire to the 



24 VERMONT. 

fences and houses near it, by discharging flaming 
arrows upon the roof, and then by pushing a cart 
loaded with burning brush 1 against the walls. 

Stevens thus describes the ingenious device by 
which he prevented the firing of the wooden walls 
by the enemy : " Those who were not employed in 
firing at the enemy were employed in digging 
trenches under the bottom of the fort. We dug 
no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man 
could go and stand upright on the outside and not 
endanger himself ; so that when these trenches 
were finished we could wet all the outside of the 
fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. We 
drew some hundreds of barrels of water, and to 
undergo all this hard service there were but thirty 
men." 2 All the attempts of the enemy were baffled, 
fair promises and dire threats alike set at naught 
by the brave defenders of the fort. 

On the third day of the siege Debeline offered 
to withdraw if Stevens would sell them provisions. 
Stevens refused, but offered to give them five bush- 
els of corn for every hostage that should be given 
him to be held till an English captive could be 
brought from Canada, whereupon, after firing a 
few more shots, the besiegers withdrew to Fort St. 
Frederic. 3 

1 Williams's History of Vermont. 

2 Captain Stevens's letter to Colonel Williams. 

3 Stevens's bravery was so much admired by Sir Charles Knowles, 
an officer of high rank in the British navy, that he presented him 
a handsome sword, and in honor of the donor the township was 
named Charlestown. For Captain Stevens's account of this siege 
see History of Charlestown, p. 34. 



THE WILDERNESS. 25 

No other expeditions were afterward undertaken 
by the French while the war lasted, but the Indi- 
ans in small parties continued to harry the settle- 
ments till after its close in 1748. To guard against 
these incursions, scouting parties, led by brave and 
experienced partisans, frequently went out from the 
frontier forts to watch the motions of the enemy, 
when oftentimes their perilous adventures and he- 
roic deeds were such that the story of them is more 
like a tale from an old romance than like a page of 
history. One memorable incident of this service 
took place on Vermont soil in the summer of the 
next year after the gallant defense of Number 
Four, when Captain Humphrey Hobbs, Stevens's 
second in command at that post, being on a scout 
toward Fort Shirley in Massachusetts, with forty 
men, for four hours held at bay and finally beat 
off an Indian force more than four times outnum- 
bering his own. It was a brush fight, wherein the 
scouts had no shelter but such forest cover as their 
assailants also took advantage of. But three of 
the scouts were killed ; the loss of the Indians, 
though great, was never known, as when one fell 
his nearest comrade crept to the body and attached 
a line to it, by which it was withdrawn to cover. 
During the fight, the scouts frequently beheld the 
ghastly sight of a dead Indian gliding away and 
fading from view in the haze of undergrowth, as if 
drawn thither by some superhuman power. 1 

1 This fight took place on Sunday, June 26, 1748, ahout twelve 
miles northwest of Fort Dummer, in the present township of 
Marlboro'. 



26 VERMONT. 

Until the beginning of another French and 
English war in 1754, and while the colonies were 
endeavoring to form a union for their better de- 
fense, while elsewhere were occurring such events as 
Braddock's Defeat and Monckton's and Winslow's 
Conquest of Acadia, there is little of consequence 
to record of affairs in this quarter till Colonel 
William Johnson, with an army of 4,000 or more, 
began an advance against Fort St. Frederic. The 
French had occupied Ticonderoga, and begun to 
fortify the point, which soon became far more im- 
portant than the older fortress of St. Frederic ; 
and their army of 2,000 regulars, Canadians and 
Indians, under Baron Dieskau, taking the offensive, 
moved against Johnson and attacked his fortified 
camp at Lake George in September, 1755. The 
French were defeated with severe loss ; 1 but John- 
son did not follow up his success, and the enemy 
retreated to Ticonderoga unmolested but by the 
impetuous attack of Captain McGinnis of New 
Hampshire, with a force of 200 men. Yet in Eng- 
land his barren victory seemed of such importance 
that he was honored with a baronetcy. 

Now, while an army of more than two thousand 
regulars, under Lord Loudon, was lying at Albany, 
and Winslow was at Lake George with 7,000 pro- 
vincial troops, Montcalm besieged Oswego, which 
presently surrendered with all its garrison, arms, 
stores, and munitions of war. Montcalm continued 

1 Johnson's " Account of Battle of Lake George, " Doc. Hist. 
N. Y. vol. ii. p. 402. 



THE WILDERNESS. 27 

actively on the offensive, and in March, 1757, un- 
dertook the capture of Fort William Henry, which 
was held by Colonel Monroe with a garrison of 
2,500 men. His surrender was at once demanded, 
but he refused, and defended the fort with great bra- 
very, being confident General Webb would presently 
send him relief from Fort Edward. But though 
frequently entreated, no help came from Webb, 
only a letter protesting his inability to aid him, 
and advising him to surrender on the best terms ob- 
tainable. This fell into the hands of Montcalm, 
and with renewed demands of surrender was sent 
by him to Monroe. Thus abandoned, after holding 
out for more than a week, he signed the articles of 
capitulation, by the terms of which his paroled army 
was to be escorted to Fort Edward, his sick and 
wounded to be cared for by Montcalm, and given 
up when sufficiently recovered. The story of the 
perfidious violation of these terms, and the horrors 
of the carnage when the defenseless prisoners, of 
whatever age or sex, or sick or wounded, were butch- 
ered by the savage allies of the Frenchmen, some 
of whom stood passive witnesses of the massacre, 
raising neither hand nor voice to stay it, is a dark 
and blood-stained page of American history, and 
an ineffaceable blot on the name of Montcalm. 
Webb, with increased alarm for his own safety, 
sent swift messengers to the provinces for reinforce- 
ments, which were at once raised and forwarded 
to him ; but Montcalm did not return from Ticon- 
deroga to attack him, and the recruits were not 
lornr kp^t in service. 



28 VERMONT. 

Loudon at New York was engaged in a con- 
troversy with the government of Massachusetts 
concerning the quartering of British troops, and 
threatening to send an army to that province if his 
demands were not speedily complied with, and so 
the campaign ended without honor or advantage to 
the English. Its poor results were chiefly due 
to the inefficiency of the British ministry, and the 
incapacity of the British commanders to carry on 
this unaccustomed warfare of the wilderness, aud 
their unwillingness to avail themselves of the expe- 
rience of the colonial officers, whom they despised, 
thus leaving to their alert and active enemy all 
the advantage of familiarity with its methods. So 
universal was the complaint in England and her 
American colonies caused by this and the preced- 
ing campaigns that the formation of a new ministry 
became necessary, and William Pitt was appointed 
secretary of state. 

In his plan of the American campaign, which 
was soon to be vigorously undertaken, one army of 
12,000 men was to attempt the conquest of Louis- 
burg ; another, still larger, that of the French forts 
on Lake Champlain ; and a third, that of Fort Du 
Quesne, at the head of the Ohio Eiver. The expe- 
dition against Louisburg was commanded by Gen- 
eral Amherst, under whom were Generals Wolfe, 
Whitmore, and Lawrence. The naval force, com- 
manded by Admiral Boscawen, sailed for America 
early in the spring, and in May, 1758, the whole 
armament of 157 sail was gathered at Halifax. 



THE WILDERNESS. 29 

Sailing thence on the 28th, a part of the transports 
arrived near Louisburg, and on the 8th of June the 
troops, under General Wolfe, disembarked and in- 
vested the city. Louisburg was garrisoned by 2,500 
regulars, 300 militia, and later by a reinforcement 
of 350 Canadians and Indians, and the harbor was 
defended by 11 French ships of war. After a siege 
of several weeks, during which the French warships 
were destroyed, the place surrendered to General 
Amherst on the 26th of July. In the beginning of 
the same month General Forbes set forth from Phil- 
adelphia on his difficult march to Fort Du Quesne. 
Obstacles which delayed and reverses which checked 
his progress did not discourage him, although he 
was so debilitated by a mortal sickness that for 
much of the distance he was carried on a litter ; and 
in November he took possession of the fort, which 
had been dismantled and abandoned by the French, 
and gave it the name of Fort Pitt. 

While these undertakings of Amherst and Forbes 
were progressing, General Abercrombie began his 
movement upon Ticonderoga with a well-appointed 
army of more than six thousand regular and nearly 
ten thousand provincial troops. The army em- 
barked on Lake George in more than a thousand 
batteaux and whaleboats ; and as the flotilla moved 
down the lake, with glittering arms and gaudy uni- 
forms and flaunting banners shining in the July 
sunshine, their splendor repeated in innumerable 
broken reflections on the ruffled waters, this wilder- 
ness had never seen such pomp and circumstance 



30 VERMONT. 

of war ; nor had its solitudes been stirred by such 
martial strains as now burst from trumpet, fife, 
drum, and Highland pipe, and echoed from shore 
and crag in multitudinous reverberations. Having 
landed next day without opposition at the lower end 
of the lake, the troops began their advance in four 
columns. An advanced guard of one battalion of 
the enemy, after firing their tents, retreated from 
their fortified camp on the approach of the English, 
but afterward engaged in a skirmish with the left 
column, when the troops had fallen into some dis- 
order in their march through the dense woods. It 
was in this engagement that the English suffered 
its first severe loss in the death of Lord Howe, a 
gallant young general, who had especially endeared 
himself to the provincials by his kindly manners, 
by sharing their hardships and perils, and by easily 
accommodating himself to the exigencies of this 
new service. Israel Putnam, then a major of the 
rangers, in which branch of the service he had dis- 
tinguished himself by his coolness and daring, was 
a conspicuous actor in this affair. After the death 
of Howe, Putnam and the troops with him attacked 
the French with such fury that more than four 
hundred of them were killed and taken prisoners. 
But the army having fallen into great disorder in 
its passage through the woods, it was deemed advis- 
able to withdraw it to the place where it had disem- 
barked. Next day, the sawmill on the outlet of 
Lake George was taken possession of by a detach- 
ment under Colonel Bradstreet, the bridge there 



THE WILDERNESS. 31 

which the enemy had destroyed was rebuilt, and 
the army again began its advance on Ticonderoga. 
Montcalm had strengthened his position by throw- 
ing up a breastwork across the neck of the penin- 
sula on which the fort stood, and by hedging this 
with an almost impenetrable abatis. Yet the en- 
gineer whom Abercrombie had sent to examine the 
enemy's position was of the opinion that it might be 
successfully stormed; and as the prisoners taken 
reported that large reinforcements were likely to 
arrive soon, it was determined to assault the works 
at once. The attacking columns were met by a 
scathing fire of artillery and musketry, but rushed 
on to the abatis, through which they vainly en- 
deavored to make their way, Murray's regiment 
of Highlanders hewing at the bristling barrier of 
pointed branches with their claymores, while a 
murderous fire from the breastworks thinned the 
ranks of the brave clansmen. Again and again 
the assailants were swept back by the pelting storm 
of bullets, and again they returned to the assault ; 
the few who struggled through the abatis were 
slain before they reached the intrenchments, or 
only reached them to be made prisoners, and of the 
Highland regiment twenty-five of the officers and 
half the privates fell. With persistent but un- 
availing valor, the attack was continued for more 
than four hours, and then a retreat was ordered, and 
the defeated army sullenly fell back to the camp 
which it had occupied the night before. Early 
next morning it was reembarked, and the torn and 



32 VERMONT. 

decimated regiments continued their retreat up the 
lake. 

General Abercrombie's defeat did not discour- 
age him from making further efforts against the 
enemy. He sent General Stanwix to build a fort 
at Oneida and dispatched Colonel Bradstreet with 
3,000 men against Fort Frontenac on the St. Law- 
rence, and both successfully performed their allot- 
ted duties. 

General Amherst returned from Louisburg, as- 
sumed command, and in the summer of 1757 began 
a movement for the reduction of Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, which was a part of this year's cam- 
paign. Moving forward by the same route that 
Abercrombie had taken, he reached the neighbor- 
hood of Ticonderoga without encountering any op- 
position from the enemy, and made preparations 
to besiege this fortress ; but the French made only 
a brief defense, in which, however, Colonel Towns- 
hend and a few soldiers were killed, and then, leav- 
ing the French flag flying and a match burning 
in the magazine to blow up the fort, evacuated it 
and retired to Crown Point the night of the 27th 
of July. An hour after their departure came the 
thunder of the explosion, which destroyed one 
bastion and set the barracks on fire. They pres- 
ently abandoned Crown Point and retired to the 
Isle aux Noix, while Amherst was repairing and 
strengthening the fortifications of Ticonderoga. 

So at last, with but slight resistance to the tide 
of conquest that was now overwhelming their 



THE WILDERNESS. 3? 

northern possessions in America, the French aban- 
doned the strongholds that guarded the " Gate of 
the Country." 

For more than a quarter of a century Fort St. 
Frederic had been the point from which maraud- 
ing bands of Indians and their scarcely less fero- 
cious white associates had set forth on errands of 
rapine and murder, which had made as dangerous 
and insecure as a crater's brink every frontier set- 
tlement of a wide region. Here had been plotted 
their forays; here they had returned from them 
with captives, scalps, and plunder ; here found 
safety from pursuit. The two forts had held civil- 
ization at bay on the border of this land of " beau- 
tiful valleys and fields fertile in corn," and to all 
the inhabitants of the New England frontier their 
fall was a deliverance from an ever-threatening 
danger. 

The French held the Isle aux Noix, their last 
remaining post on Lake Champlain, with a force of 
3,500 regular troops and Canadian militia, and had 
also on the lake four large armed vessels, com- 
manded by experienced officers of the French navy. 
The presence of this naval force made it necessary 
for Amherst to build vessels that might successfully 
oppose it, and while this work was in progress the 
British general dispatched a body of rangers against 
the Indians of St. Francis, who for fifty years had 
been active and relentless foes of the New England 
colonies. 

Early in the century many members of the dif- 



34 VERMONT. 

ferent tribes of Waubanakees in the eastern part of 
New England had been induced by the governor of 
Canada to remove to that province, and since then 
had lived on the St. Francis River, and were com- 
monly known as the St. Francis tribe, though they 
gave themselves the name of " Zooquagese," the 
people who withdrew from the others, or literally 
•« the Little People." 1 

Their intimate knowledge of the region, which 
had been the home of many generations of their 
people, and their familiarity with every waterway 
and mountain pass that gave easiest access to the 
English frontiers, made them as valuable instru- 
ments, as their hatred of the English made them 
willing ones for the hostile purposes of the French. 
From none of their enemies had the frontier set- 
tlements suffered more, and toward none did they 
bear greater enmity. 

The wrongs which these tribes had suffered from 
the English, since their earliest contact with them, 
gave cause for vengeful retaliation, and its atrocities 
were such as might be expected of savages accus- 
tomed by usage and tradition to inflict on their en- 
emies and receive from them the crudest tortures 
that could be devised, and whose religion taught no 
precept of mercy ; but for those Christians, boasting 
the highest civilization of the world, the French, 
who encouraged the barbarous warfare and seldom 
attempted to check its horrors, there can be no ex- 
cuse. 

1 From John Wadno, an intelligent Indian of St. Francis. 



THE WILDERNESS. 35 

Amherst chose Major Robert Rogers to lead the 
expedition against St. Francis, and he could not 
have chosen one better fitted to carry out the 
scheme of vengeance than this wary, intrepid, and 
unscrupulous ranger: To him it was a light 
achievement to creep within the lines of a French 
camp, and he could slay and scalp an enemy with 
as little compunction as would an Indian, 1 while the 
men whom he led had seen or suffered enough of 
Indian barbarity to make them as unrelenting as 
he in the infliction of any measure of punishment 
on these scourges of the border. 

Rogers left Crown Point on the night of the 
12th of September with a detachment of 200, em- 
barked in batteaux, and went cautiously down the 
lake. His force was reduced by one fourth on the 
fifth day out by the explosion of a keg of powder, 
which wounded several of his men and made it 
necessary to send them with an escort back to 
Crown Point. 

Arrived at the head of Missisco Bay, the boats 
and sufficient provisions for the return voyage were 
concealed, and left in charge of two trusty Indians, 
when the little army began its march across the 
country through the wilderness toward the Indian 
town. Two days later it was overtaken by the 
boat guard, bringing to Rogers the alarming news 
of the discovery of the boats by a force of French 
and Indians, four hundred strong, fifty of whom 

1 For some reports of his scouts, see Doc. Hist. N. Y. vol. iv. p. 
169 et seq. 



36 VEKMONT. 

had been sent away with the batteaux, while the 
others, still doubly outnumbering his force, were 
following him in hot pursuit. Eogers kept his own 
counsel, and alone formed the plans that he at once 
acted upon. He dispatched a lieutenant with eight 
men to Crown Point to acquaint General Amherst 
with the turn of affairs, and ask him to send pro- 
visions to Coos, on the Connecticut, to which place 
it now seemed that soon or late he must make his 
way. The only question was, whether he should 
do so now, or attempt to strike the contemplated 
blow before his pursuers could overtake him. It 
was characteristic of the man to decide upon the 
bolder course, and he marched his men, as en- 
during as the enemy and as accustomed to such 
difficult marching, with such celerity that the pur- 
suing force was left well behind when, on the 
evening of the 4th of October, the neighborhood of 
the town was reached. 

While his men halted for rest and refreshment, 
he, disguised as an Indian and accompanied by 
two of his officers, went forward and entered the 
village. The Indians, unsuspicious of danger, 
were celebrating some rite with a grand dance, 
which quite engrossed their attention while Rogers 
and his companions thoroughly reconnoitred the 
place. Returning to his troops some hours before 
daylight, he marched them within a few hundred 
yards of the town, and at daybreak, the dance 
being over and the Indians asleep, the onslaught 
was made. 



THE WILDERNESS. 37 

Amherst's orders to Rogers, after reminding him 
of the " barbarities committed by the enemy's In- 
dian scoundrels," and bidding him to " take his 
revenge," had enjoined that " no women or chil- 
dren shall be killed or hurt ; " but if this command 
was heeded at first, it was presently disregarded. 
If there was any touch of mercy in the hearts of the 
rangers when the assault began, the last vestige 
of it was swept away when daylight revealed hun- 
dreds of scalps of their own people displayed on 
poles, silvered locks of age, tresses of women's hair, 
golden ringlets of childhood, all ghastly trophies 
of New England raids. 

Old and young, warrior, squaw, and pappoose, 
alike suffered their vengeance, till of the three hun- 
dred inhabitants two thirds were killed and twenty 
taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were soon " let go 
their way." The church, adorned with plate and 
an image of silver, and the well- furnished dwellings, 
were plundered and burned, and the morning sun 
shone upon a scene of desolation as complete as 
these savages themselves had ever wrought. 

When the work of destruction was finished, 
Rogers assembled his men, of whom only one had 
been killed and six slightly wounded, and after an 
hour's rest began the return march with the pris- 
oners, five recaptured English captives, and what 
provisions and booty could be carried. 

The route taken was up the St. Francis and to 
the eastward of Lake Memphremagog, the objec- 
tive point being the Coos Meadows, where it was 



38 VERMONT. 

expected that the relief party with provisions would 
be met. They were followed by the enemy, and 
had lost seven men by their attacks, when Rogers 
formed an ambuscade upon his own track, into 
which they fell and suffered so severely that they 
desisted from further pursuit. 

When ten days had elapsed, and Rogers and his 
men had come some distance within the bounds of 
what is now Vermont, they began to suffer much 
from lack of food, and it was thought best to divide 
the force into small parties, each to make its way 
as best it could to the expected succor at Coos, or 
to the English settlements farther down the Con- 
necticut. 

While its autumnal glories faded and the pri- 
meval forest grew bare and bleak, the little bands 
struggled bravely on over rugged mountains, through 
tangled windfalls, and swamps whose miry pools 
were treacherously hidden beneath the fallen leaves, 
fighting hour after hour and day after day against 
fatigue and famine, foes more persistent, insidious, 
and unrelenting than Awahnock l and Waubana- 
kee. Such small game as they could kill, and the 
few edible roots that they found, were their only 
subsistence ; and they would gladly have bartered 
the silver image and the golden candlesticks brought 
from the church, and all their booty, for one day's 
supply of the coarsest food. They buried the treas- 
ure, with scant hope that they might ever unearth 
it, and cast away unheeded the useless burdens of 
less valuable plunder. 

1 Awahnock, = Frenchman. 



THE WILDERNESS. 39 

At night they cowered around their camp-fires 
and shivered out the miserable hours of darkness, 
then arose unrefreshed, and staggered on the way 
that each day stretched more wearily and hope- 
lessly before them. Some could go no farther, but 
fell down and died, and were left unburied by com- 
rades too weak to give them the rudest sepulchre, 
and some in the delirium of famine wandered away 
from their companions to become hopelessly lost in 
the pathless wilderness and die alone. 

The officer whom Rogers had dispatched to 
Crown Point performed the difficult journey in 
nine days, and General Amherst at once sent a 
lieutenant with three men to Number Four, to 
proceed thence up the Connecticut with provisions 
to the appointed place. The relief party embarked 
in two canoes laden with provisions, which they 
safely landed on an island near the mouth of the 
Passumpsic ; but though ordered to remain there as 
long as there was any hope of the coming of those 
whom they were sent to succor, when only two days 
had passed they became impatient of waiting, or 
were seized by a panic, and hastily departed with 
all the supplies. 

Rogers and those who remained with him, follow- 
ing the Passumpsic down to the Connecticut, came 
at last to the place where they hoped to find relief, 
but only to find it abandoned, and that so recently 
that the camp-fire of the relief party was still freshly 
burning. These men were yet so near that they 
heard the guns which Rogers fired to recall them, 



40 VERMONT. 

but which, supposed by them to be fired by the en- 
emy, only served to hasten their retreat. 

Rogers says : " It is hardly possible to describe 
the grief and consternation of those of us who came 
to the Cohasse Intervales." 1 Sorely distressed by 
this shameful desertion but not discouraged, the 
brave commander left his worn out and starving men 
at the Passumpsic in charge of a lieutenant, whom 
he instructed in the method of preparing ground- 
nuts and lily roots for food, and set forth down the 
river on a raft with Captain Ogden, one ranger, and 
a captive Indian boy, in a final endeavor to reach 
Number Four and obtain relief. At White River 
Falls the raft was wrecked, and Rogers, too weak 
to cut trees for another, burned them down and 
into proper lengths, while Ogden and the ranger 
hunted red squirrels for food. A second raft was 
then built, and, after a voyage that would have been 
perilous to men in the fullness of strength, they at 
last reached Number Four. Rogers at once dis- 
patched a canoe with supplies to his starving men, 
which reached them on the tenth day after he had 
left them, as he had promised. Two days later he 
himself went up the river with canoes, manned by 
some of the inhabitants whom he had hired, and 
laden with provisions for those who might come in 
by the same route, and he sent expresses to towns 
on the Merrimac that relief parties might be sent 
up that river. 

On the 1st of December he returned to Crown 
1 Rogers's Journal. 



THE WILDERNESS. 41 

Point with what remained of his force, having lost, 
since beginning the retreat from St. Francis, three 
lieutenants and forty-six non-commissioned officers 
and privates. Notwithstanding its losses and dire 
hardships, the expedition was successful in the in- 
fliction of a chastisement that the Indians of St. 
Francis never recovered from and never forgot, 
and which relieved the New England frontier from 
the continual dread of the bloody incursions that it 
had so long suffered. Throughout the whole of it, 
in leading it to victory and in retreat, in sharing 
their hardships and in heroic efforts to succor and 
save his men, Rogers's conduct was such as should 
make his name honorably remembered in spite of 
the suspicions which tarnished it in after years. 

While Rogers's expedition was in progress, a 
sloop of sixteen guns and a raft carrying six guns 
were built at Ticonderoga. With, these and a 
brigantine, Captain Loring sailed down the lake 
and engaged the French vessels, sinking two of 
them and capturing a third, which was repaired 
and brought away after being run aground and de- 
serted by its crew, leaving to the enemy but one 
schooner on these waters. 

Amherst at the same time embarked his whole 
army in batteaux, and began his advance against 
Isle aux Noix, but, being delayed by storms and 
adverse winds, deemed it best to abandon for this 
season the attempt, and returned to Crown Point, 
arriving there on the 27th of October. He now 
began the erection of a new and larger fortress and 



42 VERMONT. 

three new outworks there ; completed the road be- 
tween Crown Point and Ticonderoga, and began 
another from the latter fort to Number Four. 

Meanwhile events of great moment had occurred 
elsewhere. In July, after the death of General 
Prideaux, who commanded the army besieging Ni- 
agara, Sir William Johnson had defeated the French 
army sent to its relief, and the fort had surrendered 
to him. On the 13th of September Wolfe, on the 
Heights of Abraham, had given his life for imperish- 
able renown ; and six days later Quebec, the most 
impregnable stronghold of the French in America, 
was surrendered to the enemy, whose attempts to 
reduce it had for seventy years been unsuccessful. 

All the English colonies in America rejoiced in 
its fall, for the conquest of Canada was now as- 
sured, and the day of their deliverance from French 
and Indian invasion had dawned. 

Le vis's attempt to recapture Quebec had failed, 
though sickness and death had sorely weakened 
Murray's garrison, and now at Montreal the French 
were to make the last stand against English con- 
quest. Amherst was to advance upon it down the 
St. Lawrence, Murray from Quebec, and Haviland 
from the south, to break the last bar of the " Gate 
of the Country," held by Bougainville at Isle aux 
Noix. 

On the 15th of July Murray embarked with 
nearly 2,500 men, He met no great opposition 
from the superior forces of Bourlamaque and Du- 
mas, which on either shore of the river withdrew 



THE WILDERNESS. 43 

slowly toward Montreal as the fleet advanced. He 
issued a proclamation promising safety of person 
and property to all the inhabitants who remained 
peaceably at home, and threatening to burn the 
houses of all who were in arms. He kept his word 
to the letter in the protection and in the punish- 
ment, and the result was the rapid dwindling away 
of Bourlamaque's army. 

Toward the end of August he encamped below 
the town on the island of Ste. Therese, and awaited 
the arrival of the other English armies. A reeri- 
ment of New Hampshire men commanded by Colo- 
nel Goffe opened the road which Amherst had or- 
dered to be made from Number Four to Crown 
Point, and performed the labor in such good time 
that on the 31st of July they arrived, and, turned 
drovers as well as pioneers, brought with them a 
herd of cattle for the supply of the army there. 1 
This road ran from Wentworth's Ferry, near 
Charlestown, up the right bank of Black River to 
the present township of Ludlow, thence across the 
mountains to Otter Creek, and down that stream 
to a station opposite Crown Point, to which it ran 
across the country. That part of the road across 
and on the west side of the mountains was begun 
and nearly completed in the previous year, under 
the supervision of Colonel Zadok Hawks and Cap- 
tain John Stark ; Stark and 200 rangers being em- 
ployed on the western portion. 2 

1 Belknap's History of New Hampshire. 

2 Sanderson's History of Charlestown, p. 87- 



44 VERMONT. 

Haviland embarked at Crown Point on the 12th 
of August with 3,400 regulars, provincials, and In- 
dians in whaleboats and batteaux, which, under 
sunny skies and on quiet waters, came in four 
days to Isle aux Noix. Cannon were planted in 
front and rear of Bougainville's position. The 
largest vessel of his naval force was cut adrift by a 
cannon-shot and drifted into the hands of the Eng- 
lish ; and the others, endeavoring to escape to St. 
John's, ran aground and were taken by the rangers, 
who swam out and boarded one, tomahawk in hand, 
when the others presently surrendered. 2 

Bougainville, abandoning the island, made a diffi- 
cult night retreat to St. John's, and from thence 
fell back with Roquemaure to the St. Lawrence. 
Haviland was soon opposite Montreal, and in com- 
munication with Murray, and both awaited the 
coming of Amherst's army. This force had assem- 
bled at Oswego in July, and numbered something 
more than 10,000 men, exclusive of about 700 In- 
dians under Sir William Johnson, and had em- 
barked on Lake Ontario on the 10th of August, 
and within five days reached Oswigatchee. After 
the capture by five gunboats of a French armed 
brig that threatened the destruction of the bat- 
teaux and whaleboats, the army continued its ad- 
vance to Fort Levis, near the head of the rapids. 
Amherst invested the fort, and opened fire upon it 
from land and water; and when for three days 
rocky islet and wooded shore had been shaken by 

1 Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe. 



THE WILDERNESS. 45 

the thunder of the cannon that splintered the wooden 
walls, the French commandant, Pouchot, was com- 
pelled to surrender the ruined works and his gar- 
rison. Johnson's Indians were so enraged at not 
being allowed to kill the prisoners that three fourths 
of them went home. 1 There was no further resist- 
ance from the French, but there was yet a terrible 
enemy to be encountered in the long and danger- 
ous rapids that must be descended. Several were 
passed with but slight loss ; but in the most peril- 
ous passage of the last three, forty-seven boats 
were wrecked, several damaged, some artillery, 
ammunition, and stores lost, and eighty-four men 
drowned in the angry turmoil of wild waters. 
When these perils were past, an uneventful and 
unopposed voyage ensued, till on the 6th of Sep- 
tember the army landed at Lachine, and, marching 
to the city, encamped before its walls. 

The defenses of Montreal were too weak to resist 
a siege ; the troops, abandoned by the militia, too 
few to give battle to the three armies that hemmed 
them in ; and there was nothing left for Vaudreuil 
but surrender. Some of the terms of capitulation 
proposed by him were rejected by Amherst, who de- 
manded that " the whole garrison of Montreal and 
all the French troops in Canada must lay down 
their arms, and shall not serve again during the 
war." In answer to the remonstrances of Vau- 
dreuil and his generals he said : " I am fully re- 
solved, for the infamous part the troops of France 

1 Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. ii. p. 370. 



46 VERMONT. 

have acted in exciting the savages to perpetrate the 
most horrid and unheard-of barbarities in the whole 
progress of the war, and for other open treacheries 
and flagrant breaches of faith, to manifest to all 
the world, by this capitulation, my detestation of 
such practices." 1 

Vaudreuil yielded, as perforce he must, and on 
the 8th of September signed the capitulation by 
which Canada passed into the possession of Eng- 
land. The French officers, civil and military, the 
troops and sailors, were to be sent to France, and 
the inhabitants were to be protected in their prop- 
erty and religion. 

The Indian allies of the English, and those who 
had lately been the allies of the French but were 
now as ready to turn against them as they had been 
to serve, were held in such firm restraint that not 
a person suffered any injury from them more than 
from the soldiers of the victorious armies. 

The long struggle was over, the conquest of Can- 
ada was accomplished, and great was the rejoicing 
of the people of all the English colonies, espe- 
cially those of New England. The toilsome march 
through the savage forest, the cheerless bivouac on 
remote and lonely shores, were no longer to be en- 
dured ; nor the deadly ambuscade dreaded by the 
home-loving husbandman, who for love of home 
had turned soldier ; nor was his family to live in the 
constant fear of the horrors of nightly attack, mas- 
sacre, or captivity that had made anxious every 
hour of day and night. 

1 Parkman. 



CHAPTER III. 

OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT. 

Now that Canada was conquered and the French 
armies withdrawn from Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point, all the country lying between Lake Cham- 
plain and the Connecticut, commonly called the 
Wilderness, was open to settlement. 

In 1696, long before the granting of French 
seigniories on Lake Champlain, Godfrey Dellius, a 
Dutch clergyman of Albany, had purchased of the 
Mohawks, who claimed all this territory, an im- 
mense tract, extending from Saratoga along both 
sides of the Hudson River and Wood Creek, and 
on the east side of Lake Champlain, twenty miles 
north of Crown Point.' The purchase was con- 
firmed by New York, but three years later was re- 
pealed, " as an extravagant favor to one subject." 

In 1732 Colonel John Henry Lydius purchased 
of the Mohawks a large tract of land situated on 
14 the Otter Creek, which emptieth itself into Lake 
Champlain in North America, easterly from and 
near Crown Point." The deed was confirmed by 
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in 1744. This 
tract embraced nearly the whole of the present 
counties of Addison and Rutland. It was divided 



48 VERMONT. 

into townships, and most of it sold by Lydius to a 
great number of purchasers, 1 some of whom settled 
upon it. The township of Durham was originally 
settled under this grant, but the settlers, finding 
the title imperfect, applied for and obtained letters- 
patent under New York. 2 

The French colony at Point a Chevalure van- 
ished with the shadow of the banner of France. 
The young forest soon repossessed the fields where 
almost the only trace of husbandry was the rank 
growth of foreign weeds. House walls were crum- 
bling about cold hearthstones and smokeless chim- 
neys, and thresholds untrodden but by the nightly 
prowling beast or the foot of the curious hunter. 
There was no remembrance of the housewife's 
hand but the self-sown lilies and marigolds that 
mingled their strange bloom with native asters and 
goldenrods above the graves of forsaken homes. 
From where the sluggish waters of the narrow chan- 
nel are first stirred by Wood Creek, to where the 
waves of Champlain break on Canadian shores, 
there was not one settlement on its eastern border, 
nor any inhabitant save where some trapper had 
built his cabin in the solitude of the woods, and 

1 In an indenture made 30th December, 1761, Colonel Lydins 
grants to Thomas Robinson, merchant, of Newport, in the Colony 
of Rhode Island, one sixtieth of the township No. 24, called Dan- 
vis, for the " sum of one Shilling money one peppercorn each year 
for seventy years (if demanded) and after twenty years five Shil- 
lings sterling annually, forever, on the Feast Day of St. Michael 
the Archangel, for each hundred acres of arable Land." 

2 Petition of Colonel Spencer and others. Doc. Hist. N. Y. vol. 
iv. p. 575. 



OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT. 49 

dwelt hermit-like for a time while he plied his 
lonely craft. 

The Wilderness had not long rested in the silence 
of peace when it was invaded by a throng of pio- 
neers, who came to wrest its soil from the ancient 
domination of the forest, and upon it to build 
their homes. Farmers and sons of farmers, while 
serving in the colonial armies, had noted during 
their painful marches through it what goodly soil 
slept in the shadow of this wilderness ; keen-eyed 
rangers, chosen from hunters and trappers for 
their skill in woodcraft, when on their perilous 
errands had penetrated its depths wherever led an 
Indian trail or wound a stream to float a canoe, 
and knew what it held for men of their craft, and 
each had planned, when peace should come, to re- 
turn to the land that gave such promise of fruitful 
fields or the easier garner of peltry. Lumbermen, 
too, knew its wealth of great pines ; and specula- 
tors were casting greedy eyes upon the region, and 
plotting for its acquisition. 

As the soldiers who guarded its posts, or crossed 
and recrossed the savage wilderness, were of New 
England origin, it naturally followed that most of 
the actual settlers came from the same provinces. 
Thus, from the very first, each little community of 
hardy and industrious pioneers was clearly stamped 
with the New England character. Such inspira- 
tion, such love of home, as glows in the hearts of 
all mountaineers, they drew from the grand com- 
panionship of the stern and steadfast mountains, 



50 VERMONT. 

the Crouching Lion, Mansfield, Ascutney, whose 
heavenward-reaching peaks shone white with snow 
when winter reigned, or summer came or lingered 
in the valleys, — landmarks enduring as the world, 
that stand while nations are born and flourish and 
pass away. 

Sometimes the pioneer left his family in the 
older settlements while he, with a neighbor or two, 
or often alone, went into the wilderness to make the 
beginning of a new home. A pitch was located, 
and the herculean task of making a clearing be- 
gun, the apparently hopeless warfare of one puny 
hand against a countless army of giants that tow- 
ered above him. Yet one by one the great trees 
toppled and fell before his valiant strokes. The 
trunks of some were built into a log-house, with a 
puncheon floor and roof of bark ; more were rolled 
into heaps and burned, and the first patch of 
cleared soil was planted with corn or sown with 
wheat. After weeks and months of this toil and 
hardship and loneliness, perhaps not once broken 
by the sight of a fellow - being, when the tas- 
seled corn and the nodding wheat hid the black- 
ened stumps of the scant clearing, the giants still 
hemmed him in, their lofty heads the horizon of 
his little world, the bounds of his briefly sunlit sky. 
When his crops were housed, and the woods were 
gaudy with a thousand autumnal tints to where 
the glory of the deciduous trees was bounded by 
the dark wall of " black growth " on the mountains 
whose peaks were white with snow, he shouldered 



OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT. 51 

axe and gun and went southward, following the 
army of crows that raised a clamor of amazement 
at this intrusion on their immemorial domain. 
While the little clearing slept under the snow, and 
the silent cabin made the wintry loneliness of the 
forest more lonely, he spent a winter of content 
among old friends and neighbors, and in the spring 
set forth on horseback, or with an ox-team, with 
wife and children or newly wedded bride, and scant 
outfit of household stuff, to take permanent posses- 
sion of the new home, where, if the burden of 
loneliness was lightened, the weariness of toil, 
privation, and anxiety was not lessened. Nature 
was the only neighbor of the new - comers, kind 
or Tmkind, according to her impartial mood to all 
her children, now a friend and consoler, with sun- 
shine and timely shower, flowers and birdsong and 
hymns of wind-swept pines, now relentless, assail- 
ing with storm and bitter stress of cold. Miles of 
weary forest path marked only by blazed trees, or 
miles of toilsome waterway, lay between them and 
their kind, or help or sympathy in whatever trouble 
might befall them. Such consolation as religion 
might give must be sought at the fountain-head of 
all religion, since church and gospel ministrations 
were left behind. 

The old warpaths became the ways of peace, and 
on lake and river, that before had borne none but 
warlike craft, now fared the settler's boat, laden 
with his family and household goods, skirting the 
quiet shore or up the slow current of a stream, 



52 VERMONT. 

through intervales whose fat soil as yet nourished 
only a luxuriant verdure of the forest. From afar 
the eternal roar of a cataract boomed in swelling 
thunder along the green walls of the lane of waters, 
foretelling the approaching toil of a portage. But 
no foeman lurked behind the green thicket, and the 
voyagers were startled by no sound more alarming 
than the sudden uprising of innumerable water- 
fowl, the plunge of an otter disturbed in his sport, 
or the mellow cadence of the great owl's solemn 
note. 

The granting of lands, which had been inter- 
rupted by the war, was again begun by the gov- 
ernor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, and 
in different parts of the region surveyors were busy 
running the lines of townships and lots. There was 
a flavor of discovery and adventure in their weary 
toil that gave it zest, as, with no guide but the com- 
pass, they were led through sombre depths of the 
primeval forest, where the footsteps of civilized man 
had never before fallen, and set the bounds of own- 
ership where had never been sign of possession but 
the mark of the patient beaver's tooth, bark frayed 
by the claw of the bear, the antler of the moose, 
and the brands of the brief camp-fire of the savage. 
At night they bivouacked where with the fading of 
daylight their labors ended, prepared their rude 
supper by the fire that summoned a host of weird 
and grotesque shadows to surround them, and slept 
to the grewsome serenade of the wolf's long howl 
and the panther's scream. 



OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT. 53 

The conditions of the grants or charters were, 
that every grantee should plant and cultivate five 
acres within five years for every fifty acres granted ; 
that all white and other pine trees fit for masting 
the royal navy should be reserved for that use, and 
none felled without royal license ; that after ten 
years a yearly rent of one shilling for each hun- 
dred acres, also for a town lot of one acre, which 
was set to each proprietor, a yearly tribute of one 
ear of Indian corn, both to be paid on Christmas 
Day. In each township that he granted, the thrifty 
governor had five hundred acres set apart to him- 
self, still known as the governor's lot, and marked 
on the old township maps, drawn on the backs of 
the charters, with the initials " B. W." In each 
township one share of two hundred acres was set 
apart for the Society for the Propagation of the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts, one for a glebe for the 
Church of England, one for the first settled minis- 
ter, and one for a school in said town. 

The isolated townships constituted little com- 
monwealths, with governments of their own, every 
inhabitant and freeholder having liberty to vote in 
the town-meetings, and the three or five selectmen 
being invested with the chief authority. 

Naturally the proprietors to whom the township 
was granted were the most potent factors in its 
welfare and government, and, if actual settlers, took 
the most prominent part in its affairs. 

Frequently they offered bounties for the build- 
ing of gristmills and sawmills, and the forty dollars 



54 VERMONT. 

bounty offered induced the building of such mills, 
that in their turn failed not to attract settlers ; for 
it was not unusual for pioneers to go twenty miles 
on foot with a grist to the nearest mill, or to make 
as tedious journeys for a load of boards, the more 
tedious that all the environing forest was full of 
unattainable lumber. 

Many of the towns now most populous and 
important were then uninhabited and unnamed. 
Bennington, the first township granted by New 
Hampshire, had its hamlet, its principal building, 
the Green Mountain Tavern, conspicuous for its 
sign, a stuffed catamount. Here the fathers of the 
unborn State often sat in council, moistening their 
dry deliberations with copious mugs of flip served 
by their confrere, landlord Stephen Fay. Brattle- 
boro, within whose limits Fort Dummer was built 
and the first permanent settlement made, although 
it boasted the only store in the State, was of less im- 
portance ; while Westminster, with its court-house 
and jail, assumed more. But at Vergennes, then 
known as the First Falls of Otter Creek, where the 
beavers had scarcely quit building their lodges on 
the driftwood that choked the head of the fall, there 
lived only Donald Mcintosh, the stout old soldier 
of the Pretender's futile array and of Wolfe's vic- 
torious army, and half a dozen other settlers, whose 
cabins clustered about the frequently harried mills. 
Where now is the beautiful city of Burlington, 
the unbroken forest sloped to the placid shores of 
Petowbowk ; and the Winooski, from its torrential 



OCCUPATION AND SETTLEMENT. 55 

source to where its slow current crawls through the 
broad intervales to the lake, turned no mills, and, 
but for its one block-house and the infrequent cab- 
ins of adventurous pioneers, was as wild as when 
its devious course was but the warpath of the Wau- 
banakee. Thence to Canada stretched the Wil- 
derness, its solitude as supreme as when, a century 
and a half before, the French explorer first beheld 
its snow-clad mountain peaks. 

Oftener than human voice, the sonorous call of 
the moose, the wolf's long howl, the panther's cry, 
awoke its echoes, and the thud of the axe was a 
stranger sound than the rarest voice of nature. The 
eagle, swinging in majestic survey of the region, be- 
held far beneath him to the southward, here and 
there, a clustering hamlet and settlements creeping 
slowly upon his domain ; here and there a mill, 
where a stream had been stayed in its idle stra}dng ; 
and here and there on the green bosom of the for- 
est the unhealed wound of a new clearing, the bark 
roof of a settler's cabin, and the hazy upward drift 
of its chimney smoke ; then to the northward, as 
far as his telescopic vision ranged, no break in the 
variegated verdure but the silver gleam of lake and 
stream, or the rugged barrenness of mountain tops. 

Although the settlement of the newly opened 
region did not progress with anything like the 
marvelous rapidity that has marked the occupation 
of new Territories and States in later times, yet it 
was remarkable, in consideration of the tedious 
journeys that must be made to the new pitch, with 



56 VERMONT. 

slow ox-cart or sled, or on horseback, where, if there 
were roads at all, they were of the worst, or they 
were made by weary oar or waft of unstable wind. 
Furthermore, there was but comparatively slight 
overflow of population from the older provinces, or 
influx of immigration to American shores. 

The settlers in the Wilderness soon found their 
peaceable possession obstructed by an obstacle which 
they had scarcely foreseen, — not by the harass- 
ments of a foreign or savage foe, which now seemed 
hardly possible, nor by the inert and active forces 
of nature that had always to be taken into account, 
but by the jealous rivalry and greed of two provin- 
cial governments, both claiming the same territory, 
and both deriving their authority from the same 
royal source. 

This controversy between New Hampshire and 
New York, concerning their respective boundaries, 
began with the first English settlement of the re- 
gion, and continued till after the close of the Rev- 
olution. It constitutes the most unique feature of 
the history of the commonwealth ; and though it 
retarded its settlement, and afterward for years its 
admission into the Union, it was the real cause of 
its becoming an independent State. For undoubt- 
edly, if the claims of either province had been un- 
disputed by the other, the region would have qui- 
etly taken its place as part of that, and have had 
no individual existence. But the aggressions which 
the people were compelled to resist schooled them 
to a spirit of independence that most naturally led 
them to establish a separate government. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE NEW HAMPSHIKE GRANTS. 

As early as 1749, a dispute concerning the 
boundaries of their provinces had arisen between 
the governments of New Hampshire and New 
York, when Governor Benning Wentworth of 
New Hampshire had communicated to Governor 
Clinton of New York his intention of granting 
unimproved lands within his government under in- 
structions received from his Majesty King George 
Second, and inclosed his Majesty's description 
of the province of New Hampshire. 1 In 1740 the 
king had determined " that the northern boundary 
of Massachusetts be a similar curve line pursuing 
the course of the Merrimack River at three miles 
distance on the north side thereof, beginning at 
the Atlantic Ocean and ending at a point due north 
of a place called Pautucket Falls, and by a straight 
line drawn from thence due west till it meets with 
his Majesty's other governments." 

By this decision, reaffirmed in Governor Went- 
worth's commission, the government of New Hamp- 
shire held that its jurisdiction extended as far west 
as that of Massachusetts, which was to a line twenty 

1 Doc. Hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 331, 332. 



58 VERMONT. 

miles east of Hudson River. Furthermore, the king 
had repeatedly recommended to New Hampshire 
the support of Fort Dummer, as having now fallen 
within its limits, and which was well known to be 
west of the Connecticut. 1 

But it was ordered by the governor's council of 
New York " that his Excellency do acquaint Gov- 
ernor Went worth that this Province is bounded 
eastward by Connecticut River, the letters Patent 
from King Charles the Second to the Duke of York 
expressly granting all the Lands from the West 
side of Connecticut River to the East side of Dela- 
ware Bay." 2 

Governor Wentworth had already, in January, 
1749, granted one township west of the Connecti- 
cut, which in his honor was named Bennington, but 
he now promised for the present to make no further 
grants on the western frontier of his government 
that might have the least probability of interfering 
with that of New York. Later he agreed, by the 
advice of his council, to lay the matter before the 
king and await his decision, which his government 
would *' esteem it their duty to acquiesce in with- 
out further dispute," and furthermore agreed to 
exchange with the government of New York copies 
of the representation made to the king. 3 

This the council of New York reported in No- 
vember, 1753, that he had failed to do. 

This wrangling of governors and councils con- 

1 Williams's Hist, of Vt. vol. ii. pp. 12, 13. 

2 Doc. Hist. JSf. Y. vol. iv. p. 332. Ibid. p. 333. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 59 

tinned till the beginning of the war in 1754 
stopped for the time applications for grants, when 
the mutterings of the inter-provincial quarrel were 
drowned by the thunder of the more momentous 
contest of nations. 

With the subjugation of Canada, the granting 
of lands in the debatable ground was resumed. 
Governor Wentworth had a survey made sixty miles 
up the Connecticut, and three lines of townships 
were laid out on each side of the river. During the 
next year sixty townships were granted on the west 
side of the river, and within two years 108 grants 
were made, extending to a line twenty miles east of 
the Hudson, and north of that to the eastern shore 
of Lake Cham plain. 

It was reported in New York that a party of New 
Hampshire surveyors, who were laying out lands 
on the east side of the lake in September, 1762, 
asserted that Crown Point was in the limits of 
their government. In December, 1763, Lieutenant- 
Governor Colden issued a proclamation reiterat- 
ing the claim of New York to the Connecticut as 
her eastern boundary, still basing it on the grant 
to the Duke of York, and also on the description 
of the eastern boundary of New Hampshire as 
given in the letters - patent of his Majesty elated 
July 3, 1741. He commands the civil officers of 
his government to exercise jurisdiction as far as 
the banks of the Connecticut River, and the high 
sheriff of the county of Albany to return the 
names of all persons who, under the grants of New 



60 VERMONT. 

Hampshire, shall hold possession of any lands west- 
ward of Connecticut River, that they may be pro- 
ceeded against according to law. This was fol- 
lowed by a proclamation of Governor Wentworth 
on March 13, 1764, in which he reviews and de- 
nies the claim of New York. He says : u At pres- 
ent the boundaries of New York to the Northward 
are unknown, and as soon as it shall be His Majes- 
ty's pleasure to determine them, New Hampshire 
will pay a ready and cheerful obedience thereunto, 
not doubting but that all Grants made by New 
Hampshire that are fulfilled by the Grantees will 
be confirmed to them if it should be His Majesty's 
pleasure to alter the jurisdiction." He encouraged 
the grantees under his government to be industrious 
in clearing and cultivating their lands, and com- 
manded all civil officers within his province to be 
diligent in exercising jurisdiction as far westward 
as grants had been made by his government, and 
deal with all persons who " may presume to inter- 
rupt the settlers on said lands as to law and justice 
doth appertain." 2 

Thouoh the claims of New York had thus far 
been founded on the grant to the Duke of York, 
she now sought to establish it on a less doubtful 
tenure, and made application to the crown for a con- 
firmation of the same grant. This was supported 
by a petition representing that it would be greatly 
for the advantage of the settlers on the New Hamp- 
shire Grants to be annexed to New York. To 
1 Doc. Hist. N. Y. vol. iv. p. 353. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 61 

this were appended the names of many such inhab- 
itants, who afterwards asserted that it was done 
without their knowledge. 1 

In response came a royal order declaring " the 
Western bank of the Connecticut, from where it 
enters the province of Massachusetts Bay as far 
north as the 45th degree of northern latitude, to be 
the boundary line between the said two provinces 
of New Hampshire and New York." 

Though this decision was not in accordance with 
the wishes of many of the inhabitants of the Grants, 
it gave them no uneasiness concerning the validity 
of their titles. They had obtained their lands un- 
der grants from the crown, and had no fear that 
under the same authority they would or could be 
compelled to relinquish or repurchase them. Gov- 
ernor Wentworth remonstrated against the change 
of jurisdiction, but finally by proclamation, " recom- 
mended to the proprietors and settlers due obedi- 
ence to the authorities and laws of the colony of 
New York." 2 

But the government of New York chose to con- 
strue his Majesty's order as annulling the grants 
made by Governor Wentworth west of the Con- 
necticut. It divided its newly confirmed territory 
into four counties, annexing the southwestern part 
to the county of Albany, which was termed by the 
New Hampshire grantees the " unlimited county 
of Albany." North of this was the county of 

1 Slade's State Papers, p. 62. 

2 State Papers, p. 20. 



62 VERMONT. 

Charlotte, east of it the county of Cumberland, 
and north of this the county of Gloucester. 

The New Hampshire grantees were required to 
surrender their charters, and repurchase their lands 
under New York grants. Some complied, and 
paid the excessive fees demanded by the New York 
officials, which were twenty fold greater than those 
exacted by the government of New Hampshire ; a 
but for the most part the settlers were not men 
of the metal to submit to what seemed to them 
rank injustice, and they refused to comply with 
the demand. Thereupon New York regranted 
their lands to others, and actions of ejectment were 
brought against them. It was an easy matter to 
obtain judgments in the county of Albany against 
the settlers, but the execution of them was met by 
stubborn resistance, in which the people soon asso- 
ciated for mutual protection. 

A convention of representatives from the towns 
on the west side of the mountains was called, and 
by it Samuel Robinson of Bennington was ap- 
pointed as agent to present the grievances of the 
settlers to the British government, and obtain, if 
possible, a confirmation of New Hampshire grants. 

The mission of Robinson 2 was so far successful 
that the governor of New York was commanded by 

1 The fees to the governor of New Hampshire for granting 1 a 
township were about $100. Under the government of New York, 
they generally amounted to $2,000, or $2,600. Williams's Hist. 
Vt. vol. ii. p. 9. 

2 Governor Moore sneers at him as " a driver of an ox-cart for 
the. sutlers." Doc. Hist. N. Y. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 63 

his Majesty " to make no grant whatever of any 
part of the lands in dispute until his Majesty's 
pleasure should be further known " (July 24, 1767). 

But the governor's council of New York de- 
cided that this order did not restrain the granting 
of any land formerly claimed by New Hampshire, 
but not already granted by that government ; and 
the governor continued to make grants, and writs 
of ejectment were issued as before, returnable to 
the Supreme Court at Albany. It was decided in 
this court that authenticated copies of the roj^al 
orders to the governor of New Hampshire, and the 
grants made in pursuance thereof, should not be 
used in evidence. 

Ethan Allen, soon to become one of the most 
prominent actors in this controvery, was attending 
suits at Albany when this decision was made. Be- 
ing urged by some of the officials there to use his 
influence with the settlers to induce them to make 
the best terms they could with their New York 
landlords, and reminded that "might often pre- 
vails against right," Allen replied, in the Scrip- 
tural language which he was so fond of employing, 
that " the gods of the valleys were not the gods 
of the hills ; " and when asked by the attorney-gen- 
eral to explain his meaning, answered that, " if he 
would accompany him to Bennington Hill, it would 
be made plain to him." 1 

Thus debarred from obtaining justice in the 
courts, the people, assembled in convention at Ben- 
1 Thompson's Vermont, part ii. p. 21. 



64 VERMONT. 

nmgton, " resolved to support their rights and 
property in the New Hampshire Grants against 
the usurpations and unjust claims of the Governor 
and Council of New York by force, as law and 
justice were denied them.'' l 

A more thoroughly organized resistance was now 
opposed to all attempts of the New York officers to 
make arrests or serve writs of ejectment. Survey- 
ors who undertook to run the lines of New York 
grants across lands already granted by New Hamp- 
shire were compelled to desist. A sheriff could 
not come so secretly that vigilant eyes did not dis- 
cover his approach, nor with so strong a posse that, 
when he attempted to execute his duties, he did not 
find a formidable force gathered to resist him. If 
he persisted, he was, in Allen's quaint phrase, 
" severely chastised with twigs of the wilderness," 
though the " blue beech " rod, whose efficacy in 
reducing a refractory ox to submission had been so 
often proved by the rough yeomen of the Grants, 
and which they now applied to the backs of their 
oppressors, could hardly be termed a twig. This 
mode of punishment, with grim humor, they termed 
the " beech seal." 

A proclamation was issued by the governor of 
New York for apprehending some of the principal 
actors, and in the January (1770) term of the 
court at Albany several of the inhabitants of Ben- 
nington were indicted as rioters, but none of them 
were arrested. 

1 Slade's State Papers, p. 21. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 65 

Each party in the quarrel accused the other of 
being incited by the greed of the land-jobber and 
speculator, and no doubt there was some founda- 
tion for the charge, even on the part of the New 
Hampshire grantees. But with them, as against an 
aristocracy of monopolists, were the sympathies of 
the yeomen of New York, who, when called upon 
to enforce the authority of their own officers against 
their brethren of the Grants, held aloof, or feebly 
rendered their perfunctory aid. 

Sheriff Ten Eyck, being required to serve a writ 
of ejectment on James Breckenridge of Bennington, 
called to his aid, by order of the governor, a posse of 
750 armed militia. About 300 of the settlers, being 
apprised of his coming, assembled to oppose him. 
Nineteen of them were posted in the house ; the 
others, divided in two forces of about equal num- 
ber, were concealed along the road by which the 
sheriff and his men were advancing, and behind a 
ridge within gunshot of the house. Unsuspicious 
of their presence, the sheriff and his men marched 
to the house and were within the ambuscade. On 
threatening to make forcible entry, the sheriff was 
answered by those within, " Attempt it and you 
are a dead man." The ambuscading forces now 
made their presence known, and, displaying their 
hats upon the muzzles of their guns, made a show 
of twice their actual strength. The sheriff and 
his posse became aware of their dangerous position, 
and as one of the first historians of Vermont, Ira 
Allen, quaintly remarks, " not being interested in 



66 VERMONT. 

the dispute," and Mr. Ten Eyck remembering that 
important business required his immediate pres- 
ence in Albany, 1 they discreetly withdrew without 
a shot being fired on either side. 2 

The New York officers were not always so easily 
vanquished, nor so unsuccessful in their attempts. 
The doughty esquire John Munro, who held lands 
in the Grants under a New York title, and lived 
upon them among his tenants in Shaftsbury, was a 
justice of the peace for the county of Albany. He 
was a man of other metal than Sheriff Ten Eyck, 
whom he assisted to arrest Silas Robinson, of Ben- 
nington, at his own door; and though the house 
wherein they lodged with their prisoner the night 
thereafter was surrounded by forty armed men who 
demanded his release, they carried him to Albany. 
Robinson was there indicted as a rioter in January, 
1771, and held in jail till the next October, when 
he was released on bail. Upon another occasion, 
Munro, accompanied by the deputy sheriff and 
twelve men whom he called to his aid, demanded 
entrance to the house of Isaiah Carpenter, to serve 
a writ of ejectment upon him. Carpenter threat- 
ened to blow out the brains of any one who 
should attempt to enter, whereupon the deputy 
and his men forced the door, and Munro, entering 
alone, seized Carpenter with his gun in his hand. 
Two other men were found in the house, and two 
guns in a corner, "one loaded with powder and 

i Doc. Hist N. Y. vol iv. p. 422. 
2 Thompson's Vermont, part ii. p. 22. 



THE NEW HAMPSHIRE GRANTS. 67 

Bullets and the other with Powder and kidney 
Beans." 

The New York claimants now sought to draw 
some of the prominent persons of the Grants to their 
interest by offers of New York titles on favorable 
terms, and by the bestowal of offices upon them, 
and they induced people of their own province to 
settle upon unoccupied New Hampshire Grants. 
By such means they hoped to smother the unman- 
ageable element which had so far thwarted their 
attempts to gain control of the coveted region, and 
insidiously overcome the turbulent faction termed 
by them the " Bennington Mob." 

Committees of Safety were organized in several 
towns of the Grants, and a convention of the set- 
tlers decreed that no New York officer should be 
allowed to take any person out of the district with- 
out permission of the Committee of Safety, and 
that no surveys should be made there, nor lines 
run, nor settlements made, under the authority of 
New York. The punishment for violation of this 
decree was to be discretionary with a court formed 
by the Committee of Safety. Civil officers, how- 
ever, were permitted to perform their proper func- 
tions in the collection of debts, and in other matters 
not connected with the controversy. 1 Thus the in- 
habitants of the Grants established a crude but 
efficient civil government of their own. 

1 Thompson's Vermont, p. 22, 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 

A military force was organized, of which Ethan 
Allen was colonel commandant, and his active 
coadjutors, Warner, Baker, Cockran, Sunderland, 
and others, were captains. Of the name which 
they assumed, and which Vermonters are always 
proud to bear, Ira Allen says : " The governor of 
New York had threatened to drive the military 
(his opponents) into the Green Mountains, from 
which circumstance they took the name of Green 
Mountain Boys." 1 

The necessities of backwoods life accustomed 
every man of this force to the use of the musket, the 
long smooth-bore, or the rifle, and most were expert 
marksmen with any of these weapons, while many, 
from ranger service in the late war, were accom- 
plished bush-fighters. Inured to hardship and toil, 
they could not but be enduring, and, to face the 
dangers that ever beset the pioneer, they must be 
brave. Rough but kindly and honest backwoods 
yeomen, they were of the same spirit, as they were 
of the same race and generation, as the men who 
fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. 

1 Hist. Vt. p. 345. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 69 

They were occasionally mustered for practice and 
drill. Esquire Munro informed Governor Tryon 
in 1772 that the company in Bennington, com- 
manded by John Warner, 1 was on New Year's Day 
" received and continued all day fireing at marks," 
and again that " the Rioters had brought to Ben- 
nington two pieces of Cannon and a Morter piece 
from the small Fort at East Hoseck with powder 
and Ball." 

Ethan Allen was the chosen as well as the self- 
appointed leader of the people in their resistance to 
the claims of New York and its attempts to enforce 
them. Early in the controversy, he, with four of 
his brothers, came from Connecticut, and taking up 
lands under grants from New Hampshire in the 
southern part of the territory, west of the Green 
Mountains, very naturally espoused the cause of the 
New Hampshire grantees. His rude eloquence was 
of the sort to fire the hearts of the uncultivated 
backwoodsmen, whether he harangued them from 
the stump of a clearing, or, addressing a larger 
audience in the gray pages of his ill-printed pam- 
phlets, he recited their wrongs and exhorted them 
to defend their rights. His interests and sympa- 
thy, his hearty good-fellowship and rough manners, 
though upon occasion he could assume the deport- 
ment of the fine gentleman, brought him into the 
most intimate relations with them ; while his un- 
doubted bravery, his commanding figure, and her- 
culean strength set this rough-cast hero apart to 
1 Meaning Seth Warner. 



70 VERMONT. 

the chieftaincy which his self -asserting spirit was 
not slow to assume. 

His brother Ira afterwards became a man of 
great note and influence in the young common- 
wealth, but was more distinguished for civil than 
military service, though he was a lieutenant in 
Warner's regiment, and afterward captain, colonel, 
and major-general of militia. 

Seth Warner was of a commanding presence, 
"rising six feet in height, erect and well-propor- 
tioned, his countenance, attitude, and movements 
indicative of great strength and vigor of body and 
mind," says Daniel Chipman, who in his boyhood 
had often seen him. 1 But he was cast in a finer 
mould than was his more renowned compatriot, 
Ethan Allen. Modest and unassuming, he was no 
less brave, and with no lack of firmness, energy, 
and promptness to act, his bravery was tempered 
with a coolness, deliberation, and good judgment 
which made him a safe and trusted leader. He 
was no pamphleteer. In the public documents to 
which his name is appended with those of his associ- 
ates, Allen's peculiar style is most apparent, yet his 
letters show that he could express himself with ease, 
clearness, and force. He too was of Connecticut 
birth, and removed with his father to Bennington in 
1763, when he was twenty years of age. The abun- 
dant game of the region gave a first direction to his 
adventurous spirit, and he became a skillful hunter, 
expert in marksmanship and woodcraft. The same 
1 Chipman's Memoirs of Seth Warner. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 71 

spirit presently led him to take an active part in the 
controversy respecting the Grants, and he soon took 
his place among the leaders of the opponents of 
New York. Remember Baker, the kinsman of both, 
was a native of Connecticut. He was killed early 
in the War of the Revolution while with the army 
invading Canada he was reconnoitring the enemy's 
position at St. John's. Ira Allen says : " He was a 
curious marksman, and always kept his musket in 
the best possible order," which was the cause of his 
death, for he had so over-nicely sharpened his flint 
that it caught, and prevented his firing so quickly as 
did the Indian who killed him. Robert Cockran 
was another of the border captains, and made him- 
self particularly obnoxious to the government of 
New York by his active resistance to its encroach- 
ments. He served during the Revolution first in a 
Connecticut, then in a New York regiment, and 
rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. 1 Peleg Sun- 
derland, who in peaceful times was a wood-ranger, 
hunting moose in the loneliest depths of the Wilder- 
ness and setting his beaver-traps on streams that 
were strange to the eyes of white men, was another 
leader of the Green Mountain Boys, prominent 
enough to suffer outlawry. 

When, under the encouragement of the New 
York claimants, settlements were made on the 
western border of the Grants, though armed to de- 
fend themselves, the new-comers were driven away, 

1 He died among his former enemies, the Yorkers, at Sandy 
Hill, N. Y., in 1812. 



72 VERMONT. 

their log-houses torn down and burned by Allen, 
Baker, Cockran, and six others. For their appre- 
hension as rioters, warrants were thereupon issued. 
But the justice who issued them gave it as his 
opinion that no officer could arrest them, and recom- 
mended that a reward be offered to induce " some 
person of their own sort" to "artfully betray them." 
Accordingly Governor Try on offered a reward of 
twenty pounds each for their apprehension. 1 There- 
upon Allen, Baker, and Cockran issued a procla- 
mation offering a reward of fifteen pounds and 
ten pounds respectively for the apprehension and 
delivery at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington 
of James Duane and John Kemp, two New York 
officials who were conspicuously active in pushing 
their claims to lands in the disputed territory. And 
one proclamation was as effective as the other. 

However, some months later Esquire Munro was 
impelled to undertake the capture of Remember 
Baker at his home in Arlington, and in the early 
morning of March 22, 1772, with a dozen of his 
friends and dependents at his back, forcibly entered 
Baker's house. In the fray that ensued, Baker 
and his wife and boy were all severely wounded by 
sword-cuts, and he being overcome and bound was 
thrown into a sleigh and driven with all speed to- 
ward Albany. But the triumph of his captors was 
brief, for before reaching the Hudson they were 
overtaken by a rescue party that followed on horse- 
back in swift pursuit upon the first alarm, and aban- 

1 1771. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 73 

doning their bleeding and exhausted prisoner, they 
fled into the woods, and Baker, after being cared 
for by his friends, was triumphantly carried to his 
home. Munro also attempted the arrest of Seth 
Warner, who while riding with a friend was met 
by the squire and several adherents. Seizing the 
bridle of Warner's horse, Munro called on the others 
to aid him. When, in spite of all entreaty, he would 
not desist, Warner struck him to the ground with 
a blow from a dull cutlass delivered on his head, 
and went his way. The pugnacious squire had now 
had enough of the barren honors of his magistracy. 
" What can a justice do," he asks, " when the whole 
country combines against him ? " and begs Gov- 
ernor Tryon to excuse his acting any longer. He 
gave his neighbors of the Green Mountains no 
further trouble, and in 1777 fled to the army of 
Bur^oyne. His property was confiscated, and he 
was one of those who were forever proscribed by 
the Vermont act of February 26, 1779. 1 

The Green Mountain Boys were ready to resist 
more formidable attempts to bring them to sub- 
mission. When news came to Bennington that 
Governor Tryon was ascending the Hudson with 
a considerable force to invade their territory, the 
Committee of Safety and the officers convened and 
resolved that it was " their duty to oppose Gov- 
ernor Tryon and his troops to the utmost of their 
power." Accordingly the fighting men of Ben- 
nington and the neighboring towns were assembled, 
1 Governor and Council, p. 149. 



74 VERMONT. 

The cannon, mortar, and ammunition were brought 
out. Sharpshooters were to ambuscade the narrow 
passes of the road by which Tryon's force must 
approach, and cripple the invaders by picking off 
his officer. 

While this warlike preparation was in progress 
a messenger, who had been sent to Albany to gain 
information of the strength and intended march of 
the enemy, returned with the news that the troops, 
which were wind-bound somewhere below that town, 
were not coming to invade the Grants, but to gar- 
rison the lake forts. In fact, during this season 
of alarm, Governor Tryon was contemplating a 
milder policy than had so far been pursued, and 
presently dispatched a letter " to Rev. Mr. Dewy 
and the inhabitants of Bennington and the adja- 
cent country on the east side of Hudson's River." 

Though he censured their acts of violence, and 
warned them that a continuance of such acts would 
bring the " exertions of the Powers of Govern- 
ment" against them, and reasserted the claim of 
New York to the Connecticut as its eastern boun- 
dary, his tone was conciliatory, and he invited them 
to lay before his government the causes of their 
illegal proceedings, which should be examined with 
" deliberation and candor," and such relief given as 
the circumstances would justify. To accomplish 
this, such persons as they might choose to send to 
New York were promised safe conduct and protec- 
tion, excepting Ethan Allen, Warner, Baker, Cock- 
ran, and Sevil, This was briefly replied to by those 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 75 

to whom it was addressed, and at more length by- 
Allen, Warner, Baker, and Cockran. 1 In both re- 
plies the validity of the titles given by New Hamp- 
shire was maintained, and Allen and his associates 
declared their resistance had not been to the gov- 
ernment of New York, but to land-jobbers and 
speculators who were endeavoring to deprive them 
of their property. 

These were delivered by the settlers' appointed 
agents, Captain Stephen Fay and his son, and were 
laid before his council by Governor Try on. Upon 
due consideration, the council recommended that 
all prosecutions in behalf of the crown, for crimes 
with which the settlers were charged, should be 
suspended till his Majesty's pleasure should be 
known, and that owners of contested lands under 
grants from New York should stop all civil suits 
concerning the same during the like period, and 
agree with the settlers for the purchase thereof on 
moderate terms, on condition that the inhabitants 
concerned in the late disorders should conform to 
the law of New York that settlers on both sides in 
the controversy should continue undisturbed, and 
such as had been dispossessed, or forced by threats 
or other means, to desert their farms, should in fu- 
ture enjoy their possessions unmolested. 

This report was approved by the governor. 
When the agents, returning with it, laid it before 
the Committee of Safety and the people assembled 
in the meeting-house at Bennington, there was 

1 State Papers, p 22. 



76 VERMONT. 

great rejoicing over it. There was a universal 
expression of a desire for peace. The " whole ar- 
tillery of Bennington, and the small arms," thun- 
dered and rattled salutes in honor of the governor 
and council of New York, and healths to the king, 
to Governor Tryou, and to the council were drunk 
" by sundry respectable Gentlemen." 

Unfortunately for the continuance of this prom- 
ising condition of affairs, news had come before the 
return of the agents that a surveyor employed by 
the New York claimants was surveying lands for 
them in some of the townships to the northward. 
Thereupon Ethan Allen, with a small party, went 
in pursuit of him, took him prisoner, and returned 
with him to Castleton, where he was tried and sen- 
tenced to banishment, under pain of death if again 
found within the limits of the Grants. Upon learn- 
ing the favorable progress of the negotiations with 
New York, his judges revoked the rigorous decree 
and set him at liberty. Making the most of their 
time while in pursuit of the surveyor, Allen and his 
men halted at the First Falls of Otter Creek, in the 
present city of Vergennes, to dispossess the tenants 
of Colonel Reid, who had himself previously dis- 
possessed persons who, under a New Hampshire 
grant issued in 1761, had settled there and built a 
sawmill. Allen's party drove the intruders away, 
burned their log-houses, and broke the stones of 
the gristmill Reid had built, and reestablished the 
New Hampshire grantee in his sawmill. 

Governor Tryon was soon informed of the sum- 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 77 

mary proceedings of the mountaineers, and in a let- 
ter dated August 11, 1772, he sharply reprimanded 
the people of the Grants for " so manifest a breach 
of public confidence," and, to " insure a continuance 
of his friendly intentions," required their assist- 
ance to reinstate in their possessions the persons 
who had been ejected." To this an answer was re- 
turned by the Committees of Safety of Benning- 
ton and ten other towns, in which they denied 
that any breach of faith had been committed in 
the seizure of the surveyor, or the dispossession of 
Reid's tenants, as at that time the proposals of 
Governor Tryon had not been accepted or even re- 
ceived, and asserted that not they but Reid and 
the surveyor who was acting for the land-jobbers 
were the aggressors, and they declined giving any 
aid in reinstating Reid's tenants in possession so 
unjustly obtained. 1 They respectfully asked a re- 
ply, but it does not appear that any was vouch- 
safed them, or that further advances were made 
by the government of New York. 

ColonelJohn Reid, who had been lieutenant-colo- 
nel of the Forty-Second or Royal Highland Regi- 
ment, held to the purpose of maintaining his settle- 
ment on Otter Creek, and in the summer following 
he repaired thither with a company of his counts- 
men lately arrived in America. The New Hamp- 
shire settlers were again ousted, the gristmill was 
made serviceable by hooping the stones, and the 
Scotchmen were installed in their wilderness home, 
1 State Papers, pp. 29, 80. 



78 VERMONT. 

with orders to hold possession against all claimants. 
Ira Allen chanced soon after to come that way, at 
nightfall of a stormy day, on his return from an 
exploration of lands on the Winooski with a view 
to settlement there. The wet and weary traveler 
sought admittance at a log-house, whose cheerful 
firelight promised such welcome as had before been 
given him there. He was met instead by the 
savage thrust of a Highlander's skene dhu, deliv- 
ered through the scarcely opened door, and was 
questioned, not in the familiar drawl of his compa- 
triots, but in such broad Scotch dialect as unaccus- 
tomed ears could scarcely comprehend. He was 
grudgingly permitted to enter, and then ' discov- 
ered who his unwilling hosts were. He was given 
shelter for the night, and then went his way to 
Bennington with the news of this latest intrusion 
of the " Yorkers." 

Ethan Allen and Seth Warner then mustered a 
force of sixty Green Mountain Boys, and set forth 
for Otter Creek. Arriving there after a march of 
four days, they at once set about dispossessing the 
Scotchmen and their families, burned their houses 
after their effects had been removed, and destroyed 
their corn by turning their horses loose in the fields. 
Allen's party was joined next morning by Remember 
Baker, with a force nearly as large, when they com- 
pleted the work of destruction by tearing down the 
mill, breaking the millstones past all mending, 
and throwing the pieces into the river. With his 
sword Baker cut the bolt-cloth into pieces, which 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 79 

he distributed among his men to wear in their hats 
as cockades. When the sturdy miller, John Cam- 
eron, demanded by what "authority or law he and 
his men committed such acts, Baker answered, 
" We live out of the bounds of the law," and, 
holding up his gun, said, " This is my law." 1 
Cameron told him that with twenty good men he 
would have undertaken to defend his house and mill, 
though there were a hundred and ten of them, and 
was answered that he and his countrymen were all 
for the broadsword, but they were for bush fight- 
ing ! Perhaps it was in admiration of his brave 
Scotch spirit that they offered him a gift of land if 
he would join them, an offer which he rejected, 
while it may be that Donald Mcintosh, who had 
fought at Culloden and under Wolfe at Quebec, 
at least took the proposal into canny consideration, 
for his house was not molested, nor he forced to 
leave it. 

Cameron deposed that he was informed some 
three weeks later by one Irwin, who lived on the 
east shore of the lake not far from Crown Point, 
that Baker and eight others had lain in wait a 
whole day near the mouth of Otter Creek, with the 
intention of murdering Colonel Reid and his boat's 
company on their way to Crown Point, and would 
have done so, had not Reid departed a day sooner 
than expected. The story seems unlikely, as the 

1 Baker showed James Henderson the stump of a lost thumb, 
as his commission (possibly given by Esquire Munro), for per- 
forming this " very disagreeable work," 



80 VERMONT, 

Green Mountain Boys, who had come so far to 
enforce their laws of the green wood, could have 
had no means of gaining information of Colonel 
Reid's intended movements, even had they desired 
to take his life. They retaliated with hard and 
unrelenting hand the oppressive acts and the en- 
croachments of New York, but never, though the 
opportunities were frequent and the chances of ret- 
ribution few, did they, in all the course of this bit- 
ter feud, take the life of one of their opponents, 1 
even when their leaders were outlawed and a price 
set upon their heads. Having destroyed six houses, 
the mill, and most of the growing and harvested 
crops, the " Bennington Mob " departed from the 
desolated settlement, Thompson says to build a 
block-house at the lower falls of the Winooski, to 
prevent the intrusion of New York claimants there, 
but it was not reported to the New York govern- 
ment that such fortifications had been built at that 
place and at Otter Creek till September of the 
next year. 

The controversy engaged the attention of the 
British government in a direction favorable to the 
New Hampshire grantees, the Board of Trade, in a 
report to his Majesty's Privy Council, proposing 
measures 2 which, if carried out, would have con- 
firmed the rights of settlers under the grants of 
New Hampshire. 

It is worthy of notice that in this report the 

1 Doc. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 512-516. 

2 Ibid. p. 488. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 81 

board spoke with considerable severity of the con- 
duct of the governor of New York in passing pa- 
tents of confirmation of townships before granted 
by New Hampshire, and in granting other lands 
within the district, and in like manner called atten- 
tion to the exorbitant fees exacted for grants by the 
governor, secretary, and surveyor of New York, 
which were more than double those established by 
an ordinance of 1710. Added to these were unau- 
thorized fees taken by other officers, making " the 
whole amount of these fees upon a Grant of one 
thousand acres of Land in many instances not far 
short of the real value of the Fee Simple." It was 
in consideration of these emoluments, the board 
supposed, " that His Majesty's governors of New 
York have of late years taken upon themselves the 
most unwarrantable pretenses to elude the restric- 
tions contained in His Majesty's Instructions with 
regard to the quantity of Land to be granted to 
any one person," by the insertion in one grant of 
numbers of fictitious or borrowed names, for the 
purpose of conveying to one person a grant of from 
twenty thousand to forty thousand acres. They 
recommended that his Majesty be advised to give 
the most positive instructions to the governor of 
New York that the granting of lands should be at- 
tended by no fees to the attorney-general, the re- 
ceiver-general, or the auditor ; and that neither the 
governor, the secretary, nor the surveyor-general 
should take auy fees but those prescribed by the 
ordinance of 1710, which were greater than those 



82 VERMONT. 

taken by the same officers for similar service in 
any other colony. 1 

That portion of the report proposing a method 
of settling the dispute was transmitted by Lord 
Dartmouth to Governor Tryon, who in a lengthy 
reply set forth the impossibility of an adjustment 
upon the plan proposed. 

No further conciliatory measures were proposed 
or entertained by either party in the quarrel, which 
after this brief respite grew more bitter. New 
York attempted to make herself friends in the 
grants by appointing some of the prominent set- 
tlers to office. To prevent the success of this policy, 
the Committees of Safety assembled in convention 
decreed that no inhabitant of the Grants should 
hold or accept any office of honor or profit under 
the government of New York, and all civil and 
military officers who had acted under the authority 
of that government were required to " suspend 
their functions on pain of being viewed." It was 
further decreed that no person should take grants 
or the confirmation of them under the govern- 
ment of New York. The punishment for violation 
of these decrees was to be discretionary with the 
court, except that for the first offense it must not 
be capital. 2 Banishment from the Grants was a 
frequent punishment, and as frequent was the ap- 
plication of the "beech seal." As may be im- 
agined, when the spirit of the times and the rough 

1 Doc. Hist. N. T. vol. iv. p. 493. 

2 Thompson's Vermont , part ii. p. 25. 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 83 

character of a backwoods community are consid- 
ered, this was often inflicted with cruel severity. 
Yet it must be remembered in extenuation that the 
whipping-post was then a common adjunct of jus- 
tice, and that, by the sentence of properly consti- 
tuted courts, the scourge was mercilessly applied 
for the correction of very venial crimes. 

The chastisement of offenders was sometimes 
more ridiculous than severe. A Dr. Adams of Ar- 
lington, who made himself obnoxious to the Green 
Mountain Boys by his persistent sympathy with 
their enemies, suffered at Bennington, according to 
his sentence, only the indignity of being suspended 
in an armchair for two hours beneath the famous 
Green Mountain Tavern sign, whereon stood the 
stuffed hide of a great panther, a tawny monster 
that grinned a menace to all intruders from the 
country of the hated " Yorkers." 

Not long after Allen's raid on the Lower Falls 
of Otter Creek, he and his men appeared in Dur- 
ham and Socialborough, whose inhabitants were 
for the most part friendly to New York, some of 
them having accepted office under that government. 
The officials sought safety within its established 
bounds at Crown Point and Albany, flooding courts 
and council with depositions, complaints, and peti- 
tions. Those who remained were obliged to recog- 
nize the validity of the New Hampshire titles. 

By the advice of his council, Governor Tryon 
requested General Haldimand, the commander-in- 
chief of his Majesty's forces, to order a sufficient 



84 VERMONT. 

number of regular troops to Ticonderoga and Crown 
Point to aid the civil authorities in enforcing the 
laws, but the general declined on the ground that, 
in the present state of American affairs, the em- 
ployment of regular troops to suppress "a few 
lawless vagabonds " would have a bad tendency as 
an acknowledgment of the weakness of the civil 
government; also that "Crown Point, being en- 
tirely destroyed, and unprovided for the quartering 
of troops, and Ticonderoga being in a most ruinous 
state, such troops as might be sent thither would 
not be able to stay a sufficient time to render them 
of much utility." If the request was persisted in, 
however, he wished to know what force would be 
deemed sufficient. The council thought that 200 
men at Ticonderoga might be enough, — a very 
modest demand upon the commander-in-chief, but 
not on the individuals of a force so insignificant 
that it might as well have undertaken to level the 
Green Mountains as to attempt to subdue in their 
fastnesses these accomplished bush-fighters of the 
Grants. The requisition was not approved by the 
king, and the troops were not sent. 

In consideration of the representations and pe- 
titions laid before it, a committee of the General 
Assembly of New York resolved that the governor 
be requested to issue a proclamation offering a re- 
ward of fifty pounds each for the apprehension, and 
securing in his Majesty's gaol at Albany, of Ethan 
Allen, Warner, Baker, and five others, and that a 
bill be brought in more effectually to suppress the 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 85 

riotous proceedings and bring the offenders to con- 
dign punishment. These resolutions having come 
to the Grants in the columns of the " New York 
Mercury," the committees of the towns on the west 
side of the mountains met at Manchester and made 
answer thereto. They said that in consequence of 
the report of the British Board of Trade, so favor- 
able to them, they were in daily expectation of a 
royal confirmation of the New Hampshire grants, 
and declared themselves loyal and devoted subjects 
of his Majesty ; that the government of New York 
was more rebellious than they, in that it had acted 
in direct opposition to the orders of the king ; that 
they had purchased their lands of one of his Majes- 
ty's governors on the good faith of the crown of 
Great Britain, and would maintain those grants 
against all opposition, till his Majesty's pleasure 
should be known, and recommended to the governor 
of New York to await the same before proceeding 
to the harsh measures proposed, " to prevent the 
unhappy consequences that may result from such 
an attempt." They resolved to defend with their 
lives and fortunes their neighbors and friends who 
should be indicted as rioters, and that the inhab- 
itants would hold themselves " in readiness to aid 
and defend such friends of ours who, for their nierit 
to the great and general cause, are falsely denomi- 
nated rioters," but they would act only on the de- 
fensive, and would " encourage execution of the 
law in civil cases, and in criminal prosecutions that 
were so indeed." 1 

1 State Papers, p. 42. 



86 VERMONT. 

But before this answer was approved by the gen- 
eral committee, the New York Assembly had enacted 
a law (March 9, 1774) as stringent as its committee 
could have urged, or its report had foreshadowed, 
and with it or following close upon its passage was 
issued Governor Try on' s proclamation of a reward 
of one hundred pounds each for the arrest of 
Ethan Allen and Remember Baker, and fifty pounds 
for the apprehension of Seth Warner and five 
others. Some of the provisions of this extraordi- 
nary law were, that if three or more persons, " be- 
ing unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assem- 
bled within the counties of Charlotte and Albany," 
did not disperse when commanded to do so by proc- 
lamation made by a justice, sheriff, or coroner, they 
should upon conviction suffer twelve months' im- 
prisonment without bail ; and any person opposing, 
letting, hindering, or hurting the person making 
or going to make such proclamation, should be ad- 
judged a felon, and suffer death without benefit of 
clergy. It should also be adjudged felony with- 
out benefit of clergy for an unauthorized person to 
assume judicial powers, or for any person to assist 
them, or to execute their sentences, or to seize, de- 
tain, or assault and beat any magistrate or civil offi- 
cer, to compel him to resign his office, or to prevent 
his discharging its duties ; or to burn or destroy the 
grain or hay of any other person ; or to demolish 
or pull down any dwelling-house, barn, stable, or 
gristmill, sawmill, or outhouse within either of the 
said counties. When the persons named in the 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 87 

governor's proclamation, or any other persons, were 
indicted for any offense committed after the pas- 
sage of this act, and made capital by it or any other 
law, did not, within seventy days after the publi- 
cation of the governor's command to do so, sur- 
render themselves to one of his Majesty's justices 
of the peace for either of the said counties, they 
were to be adjudged guilty of the offense for which 
they had been indicted ; and if for a capital offense 
thereafter to be perpetrated, they should be con- 
victed and attainted of felony, and should suffer 
death, as in the case of persons so convicted by ver- 
dict and judgment, without benefit of clergy ; and 
it should be lawful for the supreme court of New 
York, or the courts of oyer and terminer or general 
gaol delivery, to award execution against such 
offenders as if they had been convicted in such 
courts. It was provided that, as it was impractica- 
ble to bring offenders to justice within the county 
of Charlotte, all persons committed within its limits 
should be proceeded against by any grand jury of 
the county of Albany, and tried in that county by 
a jury thereof, as if the crime or offense had been 
perpetrated therein. 1 

Here was indeed an " exertion of the powers of 
government," but it was barren of any result but to 
strengthen the spirit of opposition in those against 
whom it was directed, and, instead of terrorizing 
them into abject submission, as its authors had 
confidently expected, it served rather to unite them 
in more stubborn resistance. 

1 State Papers. 



88 VERMONT. 

In response, Allen and his proscribed associates 
pnt forth a manifesto and an address " to the peo- 
ple of the counties of Albany and Charlotte which 
inhabit to the westward, and are situated contigu- 
ous to the New Hampshire Grants," wherein, for 
the most part, the case is forcibly stated in Allen's 
peculiar style, and closes with the declaration that 
" We are under the necessity of resisting even 
unto blood every person who may attempt to take 
us as felons or rioters as aforesaid, for in this 
case it is not resisting law, but only opposing force 
by force ; therefore, inasmuch as, by the oppres- 
sions aforesaid, the New Hampshire settlers are 
reduced to the disagreeable state of anarchy and 
confusion ; in which state we hope for wisdom, 
patience, and fortitude till the happy hour his 
Majesty shall graciously be pleased to restore us to 
the privileges of Englishmen." 

Not many times, if ever, thereafter, was the 
authority of the king invoked by those who set 
their names to this paper : but little more than a 
year had elapsed when most of them were engaged 
in wresting from the crown its strongholds on Lake 
Champlain. 

Now, however, a scheme was set on foot to with- 
draw the Grants from the hated jurisdiction of 
New York by erecting them, and that part of New 
York east of the Hudson, into a separate royal 
government. Colonel Philip Skene, who lived in 
considerable state in Skenesborough House on his 
estate at the head of Lake Champlain, was engaged 



THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS. 89 

in it, probably with a view to the governorship of 
the new province, and he went to England to fur- 
ther the project. Whatever his success may have 
been, it came to nothing with the breaking out of 
the Revolution. 1 

The people of the Grants maintained their atti- 
tude of defiance and resistance. The stinging 
imprint of the beech seal was still set as relent- 
lessly on the backs of justices who yet dared to act 
under the authority of New York, and their stern 
judges sent them " toward the City of New York, 
or to the westward of the Grants," with duly signed 
certificates that they had received full punishment 
for their crimes. 

Lieutenant-Governor Golden, now acting gov- 
ernor, as Tryon "had been called home to give 
Lights on the Points in dispute," applied to 
General Gage at Boston for a force of 200 men to 
aid the civil officers in the county of Charlotte, but 
Gage declined, as Haldimand had done ; and the 
attempts of New York to enforce its authority con- 
tinued as futile as ever, while the Rob Roys of the 
new world Highlands as boldly went their way as if 
no price was set upon their heads. 

1 Williams's History ; Thompson's Vermont. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 

While the western portion of the New Hamp- 
shire Grants was involved in this turmoil of incipi- 
ent warfare, most of the settlers to the eastward of 
the Green Mountains held aloof from the strife, for 
many of them had surrendered their original char- 
ters, taking new ones under New York and submit- 
ting quietly to its jurisdiction. Yet they were not 
lacking in the spirit of patriotism that was now 
warming all their countrymen into a new life, and 
presently there came an event which welded them 
into closer affiliation with their brethren of the 
western grants, and brought them into active oppo- 
sition to the imperious government of New York. 

On the 16th of May, 1774, a committee of cor- 
respondence was formed in the city of New York, 
with the object of learning the sentiments of the 
people concerning the measures of the British gov- 
ernment respecting its American colonies. A let- 
ter, addressed by its chairman to the supervisors of 
Cumberland County, was kept secret by them, and 
no action taken upon it at their June session ; but 
its receipt in some way became known to Dr. Jones 
of Rockingham and Captain Wright of Westmin- 



THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 91 

ster, who notified their towns ; and a committee for 
the purpose being appointed in each, the supervi- 
sors were called on at their September session for 
any papers received by them which should be laid 
before the towns of the county. The letter was 
unwillingly produced, a copy was sent to each town, 
and a county convention was called to meet at 
Westminster on the 19th of October. Delegates 
from twelve towns met accordingly, and passed reso- 
lutions similar in spirit to those of the Continental 
Congress. When the action of Congress in de- 
claring the rights of the colonies, and in adopting 
the " Articles of Association," became known, 
another convention was called, which met at West- 
minster on the 30th of October, " and did adopt 
all the resolves of the Continental Congress as 
their resolves, promising religiously to adhere to 
that agreement or association." But a motion to 
choose a " committee of inspection " to observe 
whether any person violated the Articles of Asso- 
ciation was defeated by the opposition of two Tory 
members. The town of Dummerston, however, 
whose good people, " tired of diving after redress in 
a Legal way," had set Lieutenant Spaulding free 
from the jail to which he had been committed on a 
charge of high treason for saying that, " if the king 
had signed the Quebec bill, it was his opinion he 
had broken his coronation oath," at a town-meeting 
held in January following chose such a committee. 
This body removed two assessors from office for 
refusing to execute an order of the town to assess a 



92 VERMONT. 

tax, payable in potash salts, for the purpose of pro- 
curing 100 pounds of powder, 200 pounds of lead, 
and 300 flints, for the town use ; suspended another 
town officer till by his conduct he proved himself 
a Whig; and disarmed a suspected Tory. The 
example of this town was generally followed by 
others, without waiting the action of a convention. 

The General Assembly of New York had refused 
to adopt the resolves and Articles of Association of 
the Continental Congress, and the courts of justice 
were continued in that province, while elsewhere 
they were almost universally suspended. 

Affairs were at this pass, causing great dissatis- 
faction among the patriots of the Grants, when the 
time for the session of the King's Court of Cum- 
berland County, to be holden at Westminster the 
14th of March, 1775, drew near. A deputation of 
forty citizens of the county waited upon the chief 
judge, Colonel Chandler, at Chester, and endeav- 
ored to dissuade him from holding the court. He 
admitted that it would be better to hold no court 
in the present state of affairs, but said there was 
a case of murder which it was necessary to try, 
after which, if not agreeable to the people, no other 
cases should come on. In answer to the objections 
of one of their number, that the sheriff would be 
present with an armed posse and there would be 
bloodshed, he assured them that no arms should 
be brought against them, and dismissed them with 
thanks for their civility. After considerable discus- 
sion of methods to prevent the sitting of the court, 



THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 93 

it was decided that it should be permitted to come 
together, when the objections to its proceeding 
should be laid before it, "thinking," says the 
" Kelation of the Proceedings," " they were men 
of such sense that they would hear them." 1 It 
presently became known that the court intended 
to take possession of the court-house the day before 
its session was to begin, and hold it with a strong 
guard against the intrusion of those opposed to 
its opening. To forestall this purpose, about 100 
men, armed only with clubs that the stalwart men 
of Rockingham took from a neighboring woodpile, 
entered the court-house late in the afternoon of 
that day, with the intention of holding it till the 
judges should hear their grievances. They had not 
been long within it when the sheriff, with a strong 
posse of armed men and attended by the officers 
of the court, came marching up the level street 
of the little town. Halting near the door, he de- 
manded entrance, but received no answer. He 
then read the king's proclamation in a loud voice, 
commanding all persons unlawfully assembled to 
disperse, adding with an oath that, if they did not 
do so within fifteen minutes, " he would blow a lane 
through them." They answered that they would 
not disperse, but would admit the sheriff and the 
others if they would lay aside their arms, and asked 
if they had come for war; declaring they them- 
selves had come for peace, and would be glad to 
hold a parley with them. Upon this the clerk of 
1 Governor and Council, vol. i. p. 332. 



94 VERMONT. 

the court drew his pistol, and, holding it up, swore 
that " only by it would he hold parley with such 
damned rascals," and would give no more friendly 
reply to any overtures. Judge Chandler, however, 
came to them when the sheriff's posse had gone for 
refreshments, and declared that the arms were 
brought without his consent, and said that those 
who held the house might continue to do so undis- 
turbed till morning, when the court should come 
in without arms, and hear what they had to say 
before it. 

With little fear of molestation now, yet taking 
the precaution to post a sentry at the door, the 
garrison of the court-house held the place. The 
curving crest of hills that half encircle the town, 
touching the river above and below it, grew dim 
against the darkening sky, and the last gleam of 
daylight faded from the ice-bound reaches of the 
broad Connecticut. The pallid dusk of the starless 
winter night blurred houses and threshold trees 
into indistinct foruis, and fused the half -surround- 
ing wall of forest-clad hills with the sky, till they 
seemed a part of it creeping down upon the little 
hamlet. One by one the lights went out, save where 
some housewife waited her husband's coming, and 
where the glare of the inn's hospitable fire fell 
in broad bars of flickering light across the snowy 
street. The sentinel at the door paced his short 
beat. Of those whose guard he kept, some fell 
asleep on the hard benches, some gathered in 
groups to listen to the discourse of oracular politi- 



THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 95 

cians, or discuss the all-absorbing topic of the hour. 
Some of the younger men crowded into the charmed 
circle wherein some gray and garrulous veteran of 
the old wars discoursed of bush fights and Indian 
ambuscades, the siege of Number Four or Ticon- 
deroga's woeful day of slaughter and defeat, where 
he fought so hotly for the sovereign whom he now 
denounced. Some sat apart silently brooding, and 
taking no heed of the buzz of conversation, but 
grimly awaited the struggle they felt was impend- 
ing. All became suddenly alert when, about mid- 
night, the sentinel discovered armed men approach- 
ing, and gave the word to man the doors. The 
sheriff and his men were coming, with courage re- 
inforced by potations of flip and fiery rum. 

They marched to within ten rods of the door and 
halted. In a moment the order was given to fire, 
and three shots were reluctantly delivered. The 
order was repeated with curses, which incited the 
posse to a deadlier volley that killed William 
French almost outright, fatally wounded Daniel 
Houghton, and severely injured several others. The 
assailants then rushed in on the men, who had only 
clubs to defend themselves with, made several pris- 
oners and took them to the jail. One of these was 
the dying man, whom " they dragged as one would 
a dog, and would mock at as he lay gasping," and 
" did wish there were forty more in the same case." 
Lying on the jail-room floor, his five wounds un- 
dressed, French, not yet twenty-two, died in the 
early morning of the 14th. Houghton survived his 
wounds nine days. 



93 VERMONT. 

Thus in a remote frontier town was shed the 
first blood of the momentous conflict that gave 
birth to a nation. 

In the darkness and confusion all the rest of the 
Whigs escaped, some fighting their way out with 
their clubs ; one, Philip Safford, laying about him 
so lustily that eight or ten of the sheriff's posse 
went down beneath the blows of his cudgel. 

The court party came out of the melee victorious 
for the present, and. without serious injury to any 
of their number, though in the " State of the 
Facts," prepared next day by the judges and other 
officers of the court, two were reported as wounded, 
by pistol shots, which, if indeed so, must have been 
fired by their friends, for the others declared that 
they had not so much as a pistol among them, hav- 
ing come with the expectation of gaining their ob- 
ject without violence. Some did now go home for 
their guns, but did not return to renew the fray. 
More hastened away to carry the woeful tidings of 
bloodshed to the Whigs of all the country around, 
and with such dispatch was this done that, before 
noon of the next day, two hundred armed men had 
arrived from New Hampshire. Before night every 
one known to have been concerned in the killing 
of French was seized and kept under strong guard. 
The next day an inquest was held, and a verdict 
given that French came to his death at the hands of 
the sheriff, and certain others of his posse. Armed 
men continued to come from the southern part of 
the county and from Massachusetts, till by the f ol- 



THE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 97 

lowing morning five hundred "good martial sol- 
diers, well equipped for war," thronged the one 
street of the little town. 

On that day all the people who had come assem- 
bled, and voted to choose a large committee to act 
for the whole, to be composed in part of citizens of 
Cumberland County, and in part of those residing 
outside its limits. After an examination of the 
evidence, this committee voted to commit those 
most implicated in the killing of French to the jail 
at Northampton, Mass., there to await a fair trial, 
while those who seemed less guilty should be put 
under bonds to appear at the next court. The 
bonds of those admitted to bail were taken next 
day, and the others were conducted under a strong 
guard to Northampton jail, but it does not appear 
that any of them were ever brought to trial, these 
cases being lost sight of in the thickening whirl of 
Revolutionary events. 

Such is substantially the account of the affair as 
given by the committee chosen by the people. The 
accounts given by the officers of the court in their 
** State of the Facts," and by members of the sher- 
iff's posse in their deposition, make it appear that 
the so-called rioters were the first violent aggres- 
sors, beating the sheriff with clubs when he first 
attempted to force his way in ; that three shots 
were then fired by his order above the heads of 
those who held the court-house, who at once re- 
turned the fire by a discharge of guns and pistols, 
one pistol-shot being fired at such close quarters 



98 VERMONT. 

that the powder burned a large hole in the breast 
of his coat, and yet the wearer was not hurt ; that 
only four or five shots were fired into the court- 
house by the sheriff's party, and yet by this volley 
French was struck by five bullets, Houghton re- 
ceived a fatal wound, and several others were hurt. 
According to these accounts, Robert Cockran and 
others proposed such atrocities as burning the 
court-house and all within it, or firing volleys 
through it, and were only restrained by the New 
Hampshire men from doing so. 1 But there is no- 
thing of this in the relation of the committee, which 
is quite as likely to impress the unbiased inquirer 
with its truthfulness. Governor Colden, in his 
report to Lord Dartmouth of what he calls this 
" dangerous insurrection," does not attribute it to 
any dispute concerning land titles, but only to the 
example of Massachusetts ; nor does he charge the 
Bennington rioters with being implicated in it, 
though he foresaw that it would draw to the com- 
mon cause of resistance to New York the people 
of the eastern Grants with their brethren of the 
western. He wrote to General Gage of this affair 
in Cumberland, and hoped that by his assistance 
he might soon be able to hold a court of oyer and 
terminer in that county ; but the British general 
had weightier affairs upon his hands at Boston, 
and could give him no help. 

In a convention held at Westminster on the 11th 
of April, it was voted " that it is the duty of the 

i Doc. Hist. N. Y. vol. iv. pp. 547, 549. 



TtlE WESTMINSTER MASSACRE. 99 

inhabitants to wholly renounce and resist the ad- 
ministration of the government of New York till 
such time as the lives and property of these inhab- 
itants may be secured by it, or till such time as 
they can have opportunity to lay their grievances 
before his most gracious Majesty in council," with 
an humble petition " to be taken out of so offensive 
jurisdiction, and either annexed to some other gov- 
ernment or erected and incorporated into a new 
one, as may appear best to said inhabitants, to the 
Royal wisdom and clemency, and till such time as 
his Majesty shall settle this controversy." Colonel 
John Hazletine, Charles Phelps, and Colonel Ethan 
Allen were appointed to prepare the remonstrance 
and petition that were to be presented. 

Never again did any representative body of the 
Grants give an expression of loyalty to the king. 
Not many days later came the news of Lexington 
fight, and presently the mountaineers were all in as 
open revolt against King George as any had ever 
been against his royal government of the province 
of New York. Men grown so accustomed to resist- 
ance of the tyranny of the lesser power, as were the 
persecuted settlers of the western Grants, were not 
apt to be laggards in opposing the greater when its 
encroachments became as unendurable, and for a 
time the petty warfare of provincial bounds and 
jurisdiction was hidden from their sight in the over- 
spreading cloud of the grander struggle that in- 
volved the liberties of every American. 



CHAPTER VII. 

TXCONDEROGA. 

Those ruthless destroyers, time and man, have 
wrought sad havoc on the once formidable fortress 
of Ticonderoga. One wall of solid masonry has 
withstood their assaults, and still rears its sharp- 
cut angles and massive front, gray with age and 
scaled with lichens of a century, as grimly now as 
in the days of yore, above the broad expanse of 
fields that stretch away to the southwest. 

Across the neck of the peninsula, in the shadow 
of great oaks that were but saplings then, may be 
seen the well-preserved breastworks against which 
the storm of Abercrombie's assault so vainly beat, 
and within them green mounds show the position 
of old outworks. But the fort itself is a deso- 
late ruin. Ditches choked with brambles and rub- 
bish, grass-grown ramparts, crumbling bastion, and 
barrack walls, fallen-in bomb-proof and magazine, 
mark the sight of a stronghold once deemed worth 
the blood and treasure of nations to hold or gain. 

Amherst's useless fort of Crown Point, built 
with lavish expense, has not suffered such complete 
decay. The barracks are in ruin, but the almost 
unbroken ramparts rear their walled and grassy 



TICONDEROGA. 101 

steeps high above the long incline of the shrub- 
grown glacis, and the hoary walls of the outworks 
have stoutly withstood the ravages of almost seven- 
score years. The older French fort of St. Fred- 
eric ; its citadel within whose walls commandant, 
priest, and fierce Waubanakee plotted raids on the 
frontier hamlets of the heretics, in whose dungeons 
English captives languished ; its chapel, where 
masses were said in celebration of savage deeds, 
while white-coated soldier of France, rough-clad 
habitant, and painted Indian knelt together before 
the black-robed priest ; its water-gate, bastions, 
scarps, and counter-scarps, — all have fallen into 
the desolation of utter ruin. 

The conquest of Canada accomplished, it was 
no longer of vital importance that the forts on 
Lake Champlain should be maintained ; conse- 
quently the elaborately planned fortifications of 
Crown Point were never completed, and they, with 
those of Ticonderoga, fell into such neglect that in 
September, 1773, the first one was reported by 
General Haldimand to be entirely destroyed, and 
the other in a most ruinous state. And though it 
does not appear that they were dismantled or quite 
abandoned, for years they were held by garrisons 
too insignificant to defend them against any vigor- 
ous attack. In such defenseless condition they 
continued, as if too remote from the great centres 
of revolt to be of consequence to England, while 
the threatening attitude of her American colonies 
daily grew more menacing. But while the appeal 



102 VERMONT. 

to arms was yet impending, the importance of these 
posts became apparent to some active patriots of 
the New England colonies. In March, 1775, John 
Brown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had re- 
cently passed through the New Hampshire Grants 
on a secret mission to Canada, wrote from Mon- 
treal to Samuel Adams and Dr. Warren, the Com- 
mittee of Correspondence in Boston, mentioning 
one thing to be kept a profound secret. " The fort 
at Ticonderoga must be seized as soon as possible, 
should hostilities be committed by the king's 
troops. The people in the New Hampshire Grants 
have engaged to do this business, and in my opin- 
ion they are the most proper persons for this job. 
This will effectually curb this province, and all the 
troops that may be sent here." Thus it appears 
that so early as February, 1775, the capture of the 
fort was contemplated by the leaders of the Green 
Mountain Boys, and that they were committed to 
the enterprise. 

Yet, when confronted by the actual outbreak of 
war, they were sorely perplexed. Self-interest 
inclined them to hold aloof from a rupture with 
the mother country when king and privy council 
were considering, with apparent favor to them, their 
controversy with New York ; while on the other 
hand the ties of birth strongly bound them to 
their brethren of New England, and every impulse 
of patriotism impelled them to espouse the cause of 
their common country. 

Soon after receiving the news of the battle of 



T1C0NDER0GA. 103 

Lexington, which Ethan Allen says almost dis- 
tracted them, the principal officers of the Green 
Mountain Boys, and other prominent leaders, met 
at Bennington, and in the council chamber of the 
Catamount Tavern " attempted to explore futu- 
rity ; " though they " found it to be unfathomable," l 
they resolved to unite with their countrymen, whom 
they doubted not would, in the event of a success- 
ful issue of the conflict, freely accord to them the 
rights which they demanded. 

Without any knowledge of what was already 
brewing in the Grants, some gentlemen of Con- 
necticut, who on the 26th of April met Benedict 
Arnold on his way to Cambridge with a company 
of volunteers, learned from him the defenseless 
condition of Ticonderoga and the great number of 
cannon there, and at once formed a plan for its 
capture. To carry it out, they procured £300 from 
the treasury of Connecticut. This was given to 
Noah Phelps and Bernard Romans, who immedi- 
ately set forward toward the Grants, where it was , 
thought best most of the men should be raised. 
Just after their departure, Captain Mott arrived 
at Hartford and proposed the same enterprise, to 
procure artillery and stores for the people of Bos- 
ton, and being apprised of what was already on 
foot, agreed to join in the expedition. He set 
forth next day with five others, and at Salisbury 
was joined by eleven more. Arrived at Pittsfield 
it was determined, by the advice of Colonel Easton 

1 Ethan Allen. 



104 VERMONT. 

and John Brown, just returned from his Cana- 
dian mission, to raise a number of men before 
reaching the Grants, where it was thought the 
scarcity of provisions and the poverty of the in- 
habitants would make it difficult to raise and equip 
a sufficient number. Accordingly about forty men 
were recruited and made ready to march, in Jericho 
and Williamstown, by Colonel Easton and Captain 
Mott, while the others went on to Bennington. 
When, after this service, Easton and Mott were on 
their way to the same place, they were met in the 
evening by an express from their people with the 
news that Tieonderoga was reinforced and its gar- 
rison alert, and with the advice that, as it could not 
be surprised, the men recruited would better be 
dismissed. The news was discredited, the advice 
unheeded, and the colonel and the captain held for- 
ward for Bennington, rejoining their companions 
and finding the leading men of the Grants there in 
conclave. Captain Mott told his hesitating friends 
that the u account they had would not do to go back 
with and tell in Hartford ; " and his friends Mr. 
Halsey and Mr. Bull declared they would go back 
for no story till they had seen the fort for them- 
selves. 1 It was decided that the attempt to cap- 
ture the fort should not be abandoned. 

Two agents were dispatched to Albany to pur- 
chase and forward provisions for the troops, and 
trusty men were sent to waylay all the roads lead- 
ing from the Grants to Skenesborough, Lake 

r Matt' a Journal in Chittenden's. Capture of Tieonderoga. 



TICONDEROGA. 105 

George, and the Champlain forts, to prevent any 
intelligence of the movement from reaching those 
points. Then, going on to Castleton, the com- 
mittee, of which Captain Mott was chairman, ar- 
ranged there the plan of operations. 

A party of thirty men under Captain Herri ck 
were to go to Skenesborough and capture Major 
Skene and his men, and go down the lake in the 
night with his boats to Shoreham to transport the 
men assembled there across the water ; while Cap- 
tain Douglass was sent to Crown Point to concoct 
a scheme with his brother-in-law, who lived there, 
to hire the king's boats, on some plausible pretense, 
to assist in getting the men over to the New York 
shore. 

Meanwhile Captain Phelps of Connecticut had 
gone to spy out the condition of Ticonderoga. In 
the guise of a simple backwoodsman, he easily 
gained admission to the fort on the pretext of get- 
ting shaved, and, after taking careful note of all 
that could be seen in the place, returned to Castle- 
ton and reported to his friends. 

Agreeably to a promise made to the men when 
engaged that they should be commanded by their 
own officers, Colonel Ethan Allen was given the 
command of the force which was to attack Ticon- 
deroga. After receiving his orders from the com- 
mittee, and dispatching Major Gershom Beach of 
Rutland to rally the Green Mountain Boys, he 
went on to Shoreham, where they were to assemble. 

Major Beach performed the almost incredible 



106 VERMONT. 

feat of making on foot the journey of sixty miles 
in twenty-four, hours, over rough by-paths marked 
on]y by blazed trees, and along the wretched roads 
of the new country. The forest-walled highway 
led him to the hamlets of Rutland, Pittsford, Bran- 
don, and Middlebury, whose fighting men were 
quickly summoned. Along its course, he turned 
aside here and there to warn an isolated settler, to 
whose betterments he was guided by the songs of 
the earliest bobolink rejoicing over the disco vexy of 
a new meadow, by the sound of axe-strokes, by the 
drift of smoke climbing through the greening tree- 
tops from log-heap or potashery. Each man, as sum- 
moned, left his task unfinished, — the chopper his 
axe struck deep in the half-felled tree ; the grimy 
logger his smoking pile ; the sawyer his silenced 
mill with the saw stopped in its half-gnawed course 
through the great log ; the potash-maker left the 
fire to smoulder out beneath the big kettles ; and 
the farmer, though hickory leaves as large as a 
squirrel's foot calendared the time of corn-planting, 
exchanged the hoe for the gun. Each took his 
firelock, bullet pouch, and powder horn from their 
hooks above the fireplace, and, bidding brief fare- 
well to home folk, set forth to the appointed meet- 
ing place. In little bands, by threes and twos and 
singly, scarred and grizzled veterans who had 
scouted the Wilderness with Rogers, Putnam, and 
Stark, men in their prime who had seen no service 
but in raids on the Yorkers, and beardless boys 
hot with untried youthful valor, took their way 



T1C0NDER0GA. 107 

toward the lake. Most of tliem plodded the un- 
mistakable course of the muddy highways till they 
struck Amherst's road leading to Crown Point ; 
but some, with consummate faith in their woodcraft, 
took the shortest ways through the forest, now 
breasting the eastern slope of ledges whose dun in- 
cline of last year's leaves was dappled thick with 
the white bloom of moose-flowers and green tufts 
of fresh forest verdure, now scrambling down the 
sheer western wall of dilnvian shores, now wading 
the mire of a gloomy morass, and now thridding 
the intricate tangle of a windfall. 

On the evening of the 9th of May, 1775, they 
had come to the appointed place of meeting, a lit- 
tle cove about two miles north of Ticonderoga, 
where the mustering force was quite hidden from 
the observation of voyagers along the lake, and 
where the camp-fires might blaze behind the wide 
screen of newly leafing woods unseen by the garri- 
sons of the two forts. Here the Green Mountain 
Boys were met by their adored leader, and awaited 
the arrival of the boats and their comrades coming 
from the southward. 

Allen had just left Castleton when Benedict Ar- 
nold arrived there, and demanded the command of 
the expedition by authority of a colonel's commis- 
sion just received from the Massachusetts Com- 
mittee of Safety, with orders to raise 400 men 
for the reduction of Ticonderoga. The commit- 
tee in charge of the enterprise, in consideration of 
the conditions under which the men had engaged, 



108 VERMONT. 

refused to give him the command. But he per- 
sisted in demanding it, and at once set forward to 
overtake Allen, whom he found no more disposed 
to yield to his demand than the committee had 
been, nor would his men consent to follow another 
leader. Upon this, Arnold joined the force as a 
volunteer. 

By the evening of the 9th, 270 men, all but 
forty of whom were Green Mountain Boys, had 
assembled on the shore of the little creek in Shore- 
ham now known as Hand's Cove, which is in sum- 
mer a level expanse of sedgy marsh threaded by a 
narrow sluggish channel, but during the spring 
floods is a broad cove of the lake, its waters over- 
running the roots of the trees that grow upon the 
banks. Here the force anxiously awaited trans- 
portation, for the seemingly well-laid plans for se- 
curing boats had not proved successful. It was not 
till near morning that the watchers, often deceived 
by the cries of strange waterfowl, the sudden plunge 
of the muskrat, or his long wake gleaming in the 
light of the camp-fires, at last heard the unmistak- 
able splash of oars, and saw the boats coming in 
among buttressed trunks of the great elms and wa- 
ter-maples that stood ankle-deep in the spring flood. 
When scows, skiffs, dugouts, and yawls had crushed 
through the drift of dead waterweeds and made a 
landing, it was found that there were not enough 
of the motley craft collected to transport half the 
force. 

Allen, Easton, Arnold, and eighty others at once 



TICONDEROGA. 109 

embarked, and, crossing the lake, landed a little 
north of Willow Point, on the New York shore, 
when the boats returned to bring over those who, 
under Warner, remained at the cove. Day was 
now dawning, the rugged horizon line of forest 
and mountain becoming each moment more dis- 
tinct against the eastern sky, and it became evi- 
dent that, if the attack was much longer delayed, 
there would be no chance of surprising the gar- 
rison. 

Allen, therefore, determined to move forward at 
once, without waiting to be joined by those who re- 
mained on the other shore. Briefly addressing his 
men, who were drawn up in three ranks, he called 
on those who would voluntarily follow him to poise 
their firelocks. Every musket was poised, the or- 
der was given to right face, and Allen placed him- 
self at the head of the centre file ; but when he gave 
the order to march, Arnold again asserted his right 
to take command, and swore that he would be first 
to enter the fort. Allen as stoutly maintained his 
right, and, when the dispute waxed hotter, turned 
to one of his officers and asked, " What shall I do 
with the damned rascal ? Shall I put him under 
guard ? " The officer, Amos Callender of Shore- 
ham, advised them to compromise the untimely 
dispute by agreeing to enter the fort side by side, 
to which they both assented, and the little column 
at once moved forward in silence, guided by a 
youth named Beeman, who, living near by, and 
having spent many of his idle hours in the fort, 



110 VERMONT. 

was well acquainted with the entrances and all the 
interior appointments. 

Captain Delaplace and his little garrison of a 
lieutenant and forty-two uncommissioned officers 
and privates 1 were sleeping in careless security, 
not dreaming of an enemy near, while two or three 
sentinels kept listless guard. The drowsy sentry 
at the sallyport, now come upon so suddenly by 
the attacking party that he forgot to challenge or 
give an alarm, aimed his musket at the leader 
and pulled trigger. The piece missed fire, and, 
Allen running toward him with raised sword, the 
soldier retreated into the parade, when he gave a 
loud halloo and ran under a bomb-proof. The 
Green Mountain Boys now swiftly entered the fort, 
and, forming in the parade in two ranks facing the 
east and west rows of barracks, gave three lusty 
cheers. A sentry made a thrust with his bayonet 
at one of the officers, and Allen dealt him a sword- 
cut on the head that would have killed him, had 
not the force of the blow been broken by a comb 
which kept his hair in place. 2 

He threw down his gun and asked for quarter. 

1 Allen's own accounts of the number do not agree. In his 
report to the Albany committee he gives the number of prisoners 
taken as one captain and a lieutenant and forty-two men, while 
in his Narrative it ' ' consisted of the said commander, a lieutenant* 
Feltham, a conductor of artillery, a gunner, two sergeants, and 
forty-four rank and file." The first number, given in the report 
made on the day following the capture, is probably the correct 
one. 

2 Goodhue's Hist, of Shoreham. 



TICONDEROGA. Ill 

Allen demanded to be shown the apartment of the 
commandant, and was directed to a flight of stairs 
leading to the second story of the west row of bar- 
racks. Mounting to the door at their head, Allen 
ordered Captain Delaplace to " come forth in- 
stantly, or he would sacrifice the whole garrison." 
The bewildered commandant came to the door with 
his breeches in his hand, when Allen demanded the 
immediate surrender of the fort. " By whose au- 
thority do you demand it ? " asked Delaplace, and 
Allen answered, " In the name of the great Jeho- 
vah and the Continental Congress." Delaplace 
attempted to parley, but Allen cut him shorthand, 
with his drawn sword over his head, again de- 
manded an immediate surrender. Having no choice 
but to comply, Captain Delaplace at once ordered 
his men to parade without arms, and Ticonderoga 
with all its cannon and military stores was surren- 
dered to the Green Mountain Boys. 

Warner presently arrived with the remainder of 
the force, and after some convivial celebration of 
the almost bloodless conquest was dispatched by 
Allen, with about one hundred men, to take pos- 
session of Crown Point, which was held by a ser- 
geant and twelve men, and on the 12th Warner 
and Peleg Sunderland reported its capture on the 
previous day to the governor and council of Con- 
necticut. Captain Remember Baker, who had re- 
ceived orders to come with his company from the 
Winooski and join the force, after meeting and 
capturing two small boats on their way to St. 



112 VERMONT. 

John's with the alarming news of the surrender, ar- 
rived at Crown Point nearly at the same time with 
Colonel Warner. 1 Skenesborough was taken pos- 
session of by Captain Herrick, Major Skene made 
prisoner, and his schooner seized. Callender was 
sent with a small party to seize the fort at the head 
of Lake George, an exploit easily accomplished, as 
its sole occupants were a man -and woman. 

Thus, by no heroic feat of arms, but by well-laid 
plans so secretly and promptly executed that they 
remained unsuspected till their purpose was accom- 
plished, the two strongholds that guarded the pas- 
sage to the head of the lake fell into the hands of 
the Americans, with 200 cannon, some mortars and 
swivels, and a quantity of military stores, all of 
which were of incalculable value to the ill-supplied 
patriot army. 

Allen at once sent a report of the capture of 
Ticonderoga to the Albany committee, and asked 
that provisions and a reinforcement of 500 men 
might be sent to the fort, as he was apprehensive 
that General Carleton would immediately attempt 
its recapture. He also reported the capture to the 
Massachusetts government, and on the 12th sent the 
prisoners under guard to Connecticut, at the same 
time apprising Governor Trumbull of the prepara- 
tions being made to take a British armed sloop then 
lying at St. John's. 

Ticonderoga had not been many hours in posses- 
sion of its captors when Arnold again attempted 

1 Ira Allen's History of Vermont 



TICONDEROGA. 113 

to assume command, as no other officer had orders 
to show. But the soldiers refused to serve under 
him, declaring that they would go home rather than 
do so. To settle the question of authority, the 
committee issued a written order to Colonel Allen 
directing him to keep the command of said garrison 
for the use of the American colonies till further 
orders from the colony of Connecticut or from the 
Continental Congress. 

The capture of the English sloop was now under- 
taken. Arnold, in command of the schooner taken 
at Skenesborough and now armed with a few light 
guns, and Allen of a batteau, set forth on this enter- 
prise, favored by a brisk south wind, more propi- 
tious to Arnold than to his coadjutor, for it wafted 
his schooner so much more swiftly onward that he 
reached St. John's, made an easy capture of the 
larger and more heavily armed sloop, made pris- 
oners of a sergeant and twelve men, and still favored 
by the wind, which now shifted to the north, was 
well on his way up the lake with his prize when he 
met Allen's sluggish craft, some distance south of 
St. John's, and saluted, him with a discharge of 
cannon. After responding with a rattling volley 
of small arms, Allen and his party went on board 
the sloop, and further celebrated the successful 
issue of the expedition by toasting Congress and the 
cause of the colonies in bumpers furnished forth 
from the ample stores of his Majesty's navy. The 
vessels then pursued their way up the lake, past un- 
familiar headlands and islands whose fringe of dark 



114 VERMONT. 

cedars was now half veiled in the misty green of 
the opening deciduous leaves, now sailing in mid- 
channel with low shores on either hand, on this 
La Motte and Grand Isle, on that the pine-clad 
plains and Valcour, the scene of Arnold's future 
desperate naval fight, and now, when the Isles of 
the Four Winds and solitary Wajahose, far astern, 
hung between lake and sky, they hugged the cleft 
promontory of Sobapsqua 1 and the rugged walls 
of the western shore, till Bullwagga Bay was 
opened and the battlements of Crown Point arose 
before them and their present voyage ended. 

The Americans now had complete control of the 
lake, the only armed vessels afloat upon its waters, 
and all the forts except St. John's. Yet for a time 
a greater value seemed to be attached to the can- 
non and stores received than to the military impor- 
tance of the forts taken. After the capture of Ti- 
conderoga and Crown Point, more than a month 
passed in a wrangle of the commanders for the 
supremacy, and dissatisfaction and insubordination 
of the men, before the garrisons were effectively 
strengthened by a force of a thousand men under 
Colonel Hinman, who was put in command of the 
posts by the government of Connecticut, to which, 
in the division of affairs, this quarter had been 
relegated. 

1 " Pass through the Rock," Split Rock. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GKEEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 

On the 23d of June, 1775, the Continental Con- 
gress, recognizing the services of Allen and his 
associates, voted to pay the men who had been em- 
ployed in the taking and garrisoning of Crown 
Point and Ticonderoga, and " recommended to the 
Convention of New York that they, consulting with 
General Schuyler, employ in the army to be raised* 
for the defense of America, those called Green 
Mountain Boys, under such officers as said Green 
Mountain Boys shall choose." With a copy of 
these resolutions, and a letter from John Hancock 
in his official capacity as President of Congress, 
Allen and Warner presented themselves before the 
convention on the 4th of July. They were admitted 
in spite of the opposition of their old enemies, the 
speculators. Acting upon this recommendation of 
Congress, the convention ordered that an indepen- 
dent body of troops, not exceeding five hundred 
men including officers, be forthwith raised of those 
called Green Mountain Boys, under officers of their 
own election. 

When this order, forwarded by General Schuy- 
ler, was received in the Grants, a convention of the 



116 VERMONT. • 

town committees was called, which met at the house 
of Mr. Cephas Kent, innholder, in the township of 
Dorset, on the 26th of July, and, after electing a 
chairman and clerk, at once proceeded to elect the 
officers of the regiment. Ethan Allen, who had 
previously proposed to the New York convention 
a list of officers in which his name appeared first, 
followed next by Warner's, now offered himself 
as a candidate for the lieutenant-colonelcy, which 
was the rank of the commander. But he received 
only five votes, while Warner was given forty-one. 
As may well be imagined, he was greatly mortified 
by the result, which he charged to the old farmers 
who did not incline to go to war, while with the 
young Green Mountain Boys he claimed to be a 
favorite. 1 Though it seemed like a slight to the 
acknowledged leader of the Green Mountain Boys 
to elect his junior and subordinate to the command 
of this regiment, if not an act of calm and dispas- 
sionate judgment, it was one of which future events 
proved the wisdom ; for the less impetuous but no 
less brave Warner was the safer commander in 
regular military operations. It is noticeable that 
neither Baker, Cockran, nor Sunderland, Allen's 
intimate associates in resistance to New York, was 
elected by the Dorset convention, though they were 
on his list of proposed captains. 

A copy of the proceedings was forwarded to Gen- 
eral Schuyler, with a letter briefly setting forth that 
this action had been taken in compliance with the 
1 Governor and Council, vol. i. p. 6. 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 117 

orders of Congress and General Schuyler's recom- 
mendation, in no wise acknowledging the authority 
of New York, but as independently as other colo- 
nies contributing a military force to the Continen- 
tal army. 

There were then no more regular troops in 
Canada than served to garrison the posts, and the 
governor, General Carleton, attempted to raise an 
army of Canadians and Indians for offensive oper- 
ations, for the equipment of which 20,000 stand 
of arms had been sent from England. But the 
habitants had no stomach for fighting, and, though 
martial law was proclaimed, refused to arm for 
the invasion of the southern provinces, while they 
declared their willingness to defend their own. 
The governor urged the Bishop of Quebec to exer- 
cise his ecclesiastical authority to effect this pur- 
pose, but the prelate adroitly excused himself. An 
attempt was made, through the influence of the son 
of the late Sir William Johnson, to engage the 
Indians in the contest, but they prudently declined 
to take part in it. Of all the Canadians, only the 
French noblesse showed any willingness to support 
the governor, and they were too few to be of much 
account. 

The Americans, apprised of these futile attempts, 
determined to invade Canada before reinforcements 
should arrive from England. Two thousand men 
were to be raised in New York and New England, 
and commanded by Generals Schuyler and Mont- 
gomery. 



118 VERMONT. 

Among the prizes secured by the capture of 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point was a quantity of 
materials for boat-building, which now became 
available. With ready Yankee aptitude, the sol- 
diers turned their hands to the construction of bat- 
teaux for the transportation of the troops down the 
lake, and the surrounding forests rang for many 
a summer day with the busy stroke of axe and 
hammer. 

Montgomery reached Crown Point in August, 
and upon receiving news that Carleton was prepar- 
ing for offensive operations, and had several armed 
vessels at St. John's ready to transport his forces 
up the lake, at once set forth with what troops had 
arrived. With sweep and sail, the lazy flotilla of 
batteaux was urged down the lake to Isle la Motte, 
where Montgomery was joined by Schuyler, who 
though ill had hastened on from Albany. They 
then moved on to Isle aux Noix, and there so dis- 
posed their forces as to prevent the passage of the 
enemy's vessels. From this point they issued a 
proclamation to the Canadians, assuring them that 
their army was not in any way directed against 
them, but against the British, and inviting them to 
join in the struggle for liberty. 

Ethan Allen, whose patriotic ardor had not been 
cooled by his recent rebuff, had, by invitation of 
the generals, accompanied them to Isle aux Noix. 
lie held no commission, but was considered as 
an officer, and was upon occasion to be given the 
command of detachments. He was now employed, 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 119 

with Major Brown and accompanied by inter- 
preters, to distribute this proclamation among the 
Canadians, and satisfactorily performed the du- 
ties assigned him. On the 6th of September, the 
American army, not more than a thousand strong, 
advanced toward St. John's, and landed a mile and 
a half from the fort. This they found too strong 
to warrant an assault, and after a reconnoissance, 
in which they were attacked by a party of Indians, 
and suffered a slight loss while inflicting a some- 
what greater one, they withdrew next morning to 
the Isle aux Noix, to await the arrival of artillery 
and reinforcements. It was during these opera- 
tions that the brave Captain Remember Baker was 
killed. He was held in great esteem by his friends, 
and his death, being the first that occurred in the 
military operations in this quarter, created more 
stir, says Ira Allen, than the death of a thousand 
later in the war. Montgomery's reinforcements 
having arrived, he again moved upon St. John's on 
the 17th, and laid siege to the place, but, with his 
undisciplined troops and slender supply of ammu- 
nition, his progress was slow. Parties were sent 
out through the country, and were favorably re- 
ceived by the Canadians, who contributed men and 
provisions, the latter the more valuable contribu- 
tion. 

At this time, much against his wishes, for he 
would rather have taken part in the siege, Ethan 
Allen was dispatched by Montgomery on a mis- 
sion similar to that in which he was previously 



120 VERMONT. 

engaged. With a guard of about eighty men, 
mostly Canadians, he passed through the parishes 
on the Richelieu and up the St. Lawrence to "Lon- 
gueuil, u preaching politics," as he says, and meeting 
" with good success as an itinerant." On his way 
thence to La Prairie, he fell in with Major Brown, 
who was out on the same errand, and now proposed 
to Allen that they should attempt the capture of 
Montreal. His plan was, that Allen should return 
to Longueuil, and, there procuring canoes, cross his 
men to the island of Montreal, a little below the 
town ; while Brown, with about 200 men, should 
cross above it. Allen readily fell in with it, and, 
making haste back to Longueuil, obtained a few 
boats and collected about thirty recruits. In the 
course of the night he got his party across the 
river, and, setting a guard between his position and 
the town, with orders to let no one pass, awaited 
the signal which Brown was to give when he had 
effected a crossing. Allen waited with growing 
impatience, while daylight grew and sunrise came. 
All the world began to be astir, and yet Brown 
made no sign. Unsupported as he now found 
himself, he was in sorry plight, and would have 
recrossed the river, but he had only boats enough 
to transport a third of his force at a time, and the 
attempt would certainly result in the capture of 
the other two thirds. He determined to maintain 
his ground if possible, and that, in any event, all 
should fare alike. He dispatched messengers to 
Brown at La Prairie, and to L'Assomption, to a 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 121 

Mr. Walker, who was in the interest of the Ameri- 
cans, urging them to hasten to his aid. 

Montreal was already alarmed, and the governor 
and his party were preparing to retire on board 
the vessels of war, when a spy, who had escaped 
from Allen's guards, brought them information of 
Allen's condition. Upon this, Carleton marched 
out to attack the presumptuous invader, with forty 
regulars and " a mixed multitude " of Canadians, 
English, and Indians, numbering nearly 500, and 
Allen perceived that it would be a " day of trouble 
if not of rebuke." * About two o'clock in the after- 
noon, the British force began firing from the cover 
of woodpiles, ditches, and buildings, Allen's men 
returning the fusilade from positions quite as fa- 
vorable, till near half the enemy began a flank 
movement on their right. Observing this, Allen 
dispatched half his force, under a volunteer named 
Dugan, to occupy a ditch on their flank ; but Dugan 
took the opportunity to escape with his detachment, 
as did one Young, posted on the other flank with a 
small force, and Allen was left with only forty-five 
men, some of whom were wounded. He began a 
hopeless retreat, which was continued for a while. 
An officer pressing close upon the rear fired his gun 
at Allen, the ball whistling past his head. Allen's 
shot in turn missed his enemy, as both were out of 
breath with running. Allen now offered to surren- 
der if assured of quarter for himself and his men, 
which was promised by this officer. Whereupon 

1 Allen's Narrative. 



122 VERMONT. 

Allen gave up his sword and surrendered his 
party, dwindled to thirty-eight, seven of whom were 
wounded. A painted and half -naked Indian rushed 
toward them, and within a few yards aimed his 
gun at Allen, who, seizing the officer to whom he 
had delivered his sword, made a shield of him, and 
kept him spinning around, as the Indian swiftly 
circled about the two, in a vain attempt to fire a 
shot that should kill only the Green Mountain 
Boy. Another Indian then took part in the attack, 
and Allen's shrift would have been short, had not 
an Irishman and a Canadian come to his rescue. 
He was then well treated by his captors, walking 
to the town between a British officer and a French 
gentleman, who, though he had lost an eyebrow 
in the action, " was very merry and facetious." 
But when General Prescott, who throughout the 
war never missed an opportunity of exhibiting his 
brutality, met them at the barracks and learned 
that the prisoner was the captor of Ticonderoga, 
he showered a torrent of abuse upon him, while 
he shook his cane over his head. Allen shook 
his fist at the general, and told him "that was 
the beetle of mortality for him if he offered to 
strike." An officer whispered to Prescott that 
it was inconsistent with his honor to strike a 
prisoner. Prescott turned his wrath upon the 
Canadians, and ordered a sergeant's guard to 
kill thirteen of them ; and when Allen had some- 
what dramatically but successfully interposed to 
save their lives, Prescott roared at him, with an 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 123 

oath, " I will not execute you now, but you shall 
grace a halter at Tyburn ! " By Prescott's orders 
he was taken on board a vessel of war and man- 
acled like a common felon, and presently, with 
other prisoners, was sent to England. Landing at 
Falmouth, clad in the fawn-skin jacket and red 
woolen cap that he wore when taken, his strange 
appearance excited a curiosity that not a little grati- 
fied him. From his capture till he was exchanged 
in 1778, he suffered on shipboard and in prison, 
with brief intervals of kinder treatment, a hard and 
cruel captivity, from which he emerged, however, 
with a spirit unsubdued, and unswerving loyalty to 
his country's cause. The attempt upon Montreal 
has generally been characterized as rash ; yet, if 
Brown had not, for some unexplained reason, failed 
to perform his part in it, it is more than proba- 
ble the undertaking would have succeeded. It was 
one of those daring enterprises which if success- 
ful receive the highest praise, if unsuccessful are 
scouted as foolhardy. 

Meanwhile the siege of St. John's progressed 
slowly, principally through lack of ammunition. 
But on the 18th of October the fort at Chambly, 
further down the river, and garrisoned by about 
100 men of the British Seventh Regiment, surren- 
dered to Majors Brown and Livingston, and among 
the most important of its captured stores were 120 
barrels of gunpowder, which enabled Montgomery 
to push the siege with more vigor. As gratifying 
if not as useful was the capture of the colors of the 



124 VERMONT. 

regiment, the first trophy of the kind received by 
the Continental Congress. 

General Carleton was making all possible efforts 
for the relief of St. John's, whose garrison of 500 
regulars and about 200 other troops was bravely 
defending it. He had collected a force of 800 
regulars, militia, and Indians, which he embarked 
at Montreal, with the design of landing at Lon- 
gueuil and joining Colonel McLean at the mouth of 
the Richelieu, where that officer was posted with a 
few hundred Scotch emigrants and some Canadians. 
Colonel Seth Warner with 300 Green Mountain 
Boys was keeping close watch of Carleton's move- 
ments, and when the flotilla drew near the south 
shore of the St. Lawrence, the rangers poured upon 
it a destructive volley of small-arms and a shower 
of grapeshot from a four-pounder. Carleton's force 
retired in confusion, and when McLean's Cana- 
dians got news of the disaster they took French 
leave of him, and he with his Scotchmen retired 
in haste to Quebec. Left now without hope of re- 
lief, St. John's capitulated on the 3d of November, 
and a considerable number of cannon, a quantity 
of military stores, and 600 prisoners fell into the 
hands of the Americans. The prisoners were sent 
by way of Ticonderoga into the interior of New 
England. 

Montgomery now marched to Montreal, which 
Carleton had secretly quitted the night before. 
The inhabitants proposed a capitulation, which 
Montgomery refused, as they were incapable of 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 125 

making any defense. Promising them perfect pro- 
tection of person and property, he marched his 
army into the place, and took peaceable possession 
on the 13th. 

Colonel Easton had been sent with a detachment 
to the mouth of the Richelieu, where he erected a 
battery of two guns, and, being reinforced by a 
gunboat from St. John's on the 17th, he captured, 
as they attempted to pass on their way to Quebec, 
eleven sail of armed vessels freighted with provi- 
sions and military stores, and having on board 
General Prescott and 120 officers and privates. 

The term of enlistment of Warner's men hav- 
ing now expired, they presently returned to their 
homes, not long after to be recalled, with their 
leader, in the stress of the Northern winter, by the 
urgent appeal of the commander of the army in 
Canada. 

During the occurrence of these events, Arnold 
was engaged in his memorable expedition against 
Quebec by way of the Kennebec. Arriving at the 
mouth of that river on the 20th of September, 
he set forth with an army of 1,100 men, embarked 
in heavy batteaux, to voyage up the wild stream 
where hitherto had floated only the light craft of 
the Indian, the scout, and the hunter. Battling 
with dogged persistence against the angry rush of 
rapids, and now dragging their bulky craft over 
portages of swamp or rugged steeps, they made their 
slow and weary progress through the heart of the 
pitiless wilderness at the rate, at best, of little more 



126 VERMONT. 

than four miles a day. Through constant strain of 
toil and hardship many fell sick, and in the pas- 
sage of the rapids much of their provisions was 
lost, so that the horror of starvation was added to 
the heavy measure of their suffering. Men killed 
and ate their dogs, or gnawed their shoes and the 
leather of their cartouch boxes, to allay the pangs 
of hunger. When the head of the Kennebec was 
reached, Colonel Enos, who was ordered to send 
back the sick, himself went off with three compa- 
nies, a council of his officers having decided that 
it was impossible to proceed, for lack of provisions. 
But Arnold, with his remaining force, held on his 
way with desperate determination, and, coming to 
the Chaudiere, followed it till on the 3d of No- 
vember they came to the first house that they had 
seen for a month, and there procured some sup- 
plies. At Sortigan, the first village reached, they 
were kindly received by the Canadians and boun- 
tifully supplied with provisions. A proclamation 
prepared by Washington was distributed among the 
Canadians. It invited them to join the Americans 
and assured them protection of person, property, 
and religion, and was well received by them. With 
the aid which these people afforded, Arnold made 
an easy march to Point Levi, arriving there on the 
9th with about 700 men. Twenty-four hours passed 
before his coming was known in Quebec. There 
was such dissension among the British inhabitants 
in consequence of the opposition of the English 
merchants to the Quebec Bill, that the city was in 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 127 

no condition for defense. The French citizens had 
no inclination to take up arms against the Ameri- 
cans ; and had Arnold the means of transportation 
across the broad St. Lawrence, it is probable that 
he might easily have taken the city. Three days 
later Colonel McLean arrived there with 170 of 
his regiment of Scotch emigrants, and at nine in 
the evening of the next day Arnold began em- 
barking his men in canoes. By four in the morn- 
ing 500 were landed at Wolfe's Cove, whence 
they marched to the Plains of Abraham. When 
Arnold's landing became known in the city, sailors 
were brought on shore from the ships to man the 
guns of the fortifications ; the loyal citizens became 
more confident of making a successful defense, and 
when Arnold sent a flag with a summons to surren- 
der, it was fired upon. He was not strong enough 
to strike ; he could but menace ; and when menace 
failed to intimidate the enemy, there was nothing 
for him but to retire. Therefore he withdrew to 
Point au Trembles, seven leagues above Quebec, 
on the left bank of the St. Lawrence. There, 
on the 1st of December, he was joined by Mont- 
gomery, who had marched his little force of 300 
men with all possible celerity through the half- 
frozen mire of roads wretched at best, and in the 
blinding snowstorms of a winter already rigorous 
in that climate. Three armed schooners had also 
arrived with ammunition, clothing, and provisions. 
On the 5th the little army, less than a thousand 
strong, appeared before Quebec, now garrisoned by 



128 VERMONT. 

more than 1,500 men of McLean's regiment, regu- 
lars, seamen, marines, and militia. Montgomery- 
opened an ineffectual fire on the town from two 
small batteries of mortar and cannon. An assault 
was determined upon, and on the last day of the 
year, under the thick veil of a downfall of snow, 
the troops made the assault in four columns at as 
many points. The attack of two columns was a 
feint against the upper town. Montgomery and 
Arnold led the actual assault of the other two 
against the lower town, and gained some advan- 
tages. Montgomery was killed, and his corps of 
200 swept back by a storm of grape and musket 
balls poured upon them from the second barrier. 
Arnold was carried from the field with a leg shat- 
tered in a successful attack upon a battery, and his 
column of 300, after a desperate fight of three 
hours, was overwhelmed by the whole force of the 
British now turned upon it, and it was obliged to 
surrender. 

The command now devolved upon Arnold, and 
the troops, reduced to 400, withdrew three miles 
from the city, and there maintained a partial block- 
ade of it. 1 General Wooster, in command at 
Montreal, sent expresses to Washington, Schuyler, 
and Congress, and on the 6th of January wrote 
to Colonel Warner urging him to raise and send 
on the more readily available Green Mountain 
Boys, " by tens, twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties, 
as fast as they could be collected." The response 
1 Williams, vol. ii. 



GliEXN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 129 

to his call was prompt. In eleven days Warner 
mustered his men, and despite the rigors of the 
northern winter, whose bitterness they had so often 
tasted, they marched in snow and pinching cold to 
the assistance of their brethren in Canada, and 
their alacrity called forth the approval of Wash- 
ington and Schuyler. 1 

The offensive operations of the Americans in 
Canada were thereafter feeble and ineffectual. 
Reinforcements had arrived, but smallpox was 
raging in the camp, so that when General Thomas 
took command on the 14th of May there were less 
than 900 men fit for duty. In this condition, and 
with only three days' provisions remaining, an im- 
mediate retreat was decided upon by a council of 
war. This became precipitate when three English 
ships of war arrived and landed more than a thou- 
sand marines and regulars, and General Carleton 
marched out with 800 regulars against the Ameri- 
cans, already in retreat. 

Artillery, stores, and baggage were abandoned, 
and the troops scattered in flight, the general be- 
insr able to collect no more than 300 of them. By 
day and night they retreated nearly fifty miles 
before they halted, when, being beyond immediate 
reach of the enemy, they rested a few days and 
then marched to Sorel, in sorry plight, worn with 
disease, fatigue, and hunger. 

For the most part, the Canadians proved but 
fair-weather friends, and gave them little aid now 

1 Hall's Early History of Vermont. 



130 VERMONT. 

that the fortune of war no longer favored them. 
General Thomas died here of smallpox, and Gen- 
eral Sullivan took command. After the cowardly 
surrender by Major Beadle of his force of nearly 
400 posted at The Cedars, a small fort on the St. 
Lawrence, to Captain Foster, with a detachment 
of 40 regulars, 100 Canadians, and 500 Indians, 
without artillery, and the disastrous failure of Gen- 
eral Thompson with 1,800 men to surprise the Brit- 
ish advance at Trois Rivieres, all the American 
troops began a retreat from Canada, where an 
army of 13,000 English and German troops were 
now arrived. 

Arnold, who had been in command at Montreal 
since the 1st of April, crossed the St. Lawrence at 
Longueuil on the 15th of June, and marched to 
Chambly, whence the army continued its retreat in 
good order, first to Isle aux Noix and then to 
Crown Point. 

During the withdrawal of the army from Can- 
ada, the services of Warner and his Green Moun- 
tain Boys again became conspicuous. Following 
in the rear, but little in advance of the pursuing 
enemy, he was chiefly employed in gathering up 
the sick and wounded. Some straggling in the 
woods, some sheltered in the garlick-reeking cab- 
ins of the least unfriendly habitants, he succeeded 
in bringing a great number of them to Isle aux 
Noix. 

Thence embarked, in leaky open boats, the 
wretched invalids voyaged to Crown Point, their 



GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS IN CANADA. 131 

misery mocked by the brightness of the June skies, 
the beauty of the shores clad in the luxuriant leaf- 
age of early summer, and the glitter of the sunlit 
waters. The condition of the broken army gath- 
ered at Crown Point was miserable in the extreme. 
More than half of the 5,200 men were sick, and 
those reported fit for duty were weak and half 
clad, broken in spirit and discipline. A few were 
in tents, some in poor sheds, while the greater 
part had only the shelter of bush huts. Colonel 
Trumbull says : " I did not look into a tent or hut in 
which I did not find either a dead or dying man." 
More than 300 new-made graves marked the brief 
tarry of the troops at Crown Point. Those whom 
Colonel Warner did not succeed in bring-in o- off 
and who fell into General Carleton's hands, were 
treated by him with the greatest kindness. 

So closed this unprofitable campaign, in whose 
prosecution such heroism had been expended in 
vain, such valuable lives wasted. Beginning with 
a series of successes, it ended in disaster, and was 
fortunate only in that it did not achieve the con- 
quest of a province to hold which would have re- 
quired the presence of an army that could ill be 
spared elsewhere, — a province which was chiefly 
peopled by a race alien in language and religion, 
too abject to strike for its own freedom, and so 
priest-ridden and steeped in ignorance that its in- 
corporation with it could prove but a curse to the 
young republic. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LAKE CHAMPLAItf. 

General Gates having been appointed to the 
command of the northern army, General Sullivan 
resigned it to him on the 12th of July, receiving 
the thanks of his officers and the approval of Con- 
gress for the ability with which he had conducted 
the retreat. 

In conformity to the decision of a council of war, 
General Gates withdrew his troops from Crown 
Point, where not a cannon was mounted, to Ticon- 
deroga, and began strengthening the works there 
and erecting new ones upon a hill on the opposite 
side of the lake. While this new work, a star 
fort, was in progress, news came of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and in honor of the event 
the place was named Mount Independence. The 
smallpox patients were removed to a hospital at 
Fort George, and the recruits, now coming in con- 
siderable numbers, were assembled at Skenes- 
borough. 

The construction of vessels of war, wherewith to 
keep control of the lake, was now entered upon. 
In spite of the difficulties attending their construc- 
tion in a place so remote from all supplies but 



LAKE CHAMP LAIN. 133 

timber, and that green in the forest, the work was 
pushed so vigorously that before the end of August 
one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas were 
ready for service, mounting fifty five, twelve, nine, 
and six pounders and seventy swivels. These 
were manned by 395 men, old sea-dogs drifted 
to inland waters, and unsalted navigators of lakes 
and rivers, " a miserable set," Arnold wrote to 
Gates. In the latter part of August the fleet 
sailed down the lake under the command of Ar- 
nold, and, when soon after reinforced by a cutter, 
three galleys, and three gunboats, amounted to 
fifteen sail. 

At the north end of the lake, the British were as 
busy in constructing and assembling a fleet. Six 
armed vessels, built in England especially for 
this service, could not be got over the rapids at 
Chambly, and were taken to pieces, transported 
above this obstruction, and reconstructed. The 
largest of these, the Intrepid, was completed in 
" twenty-eight days from the laying of the keel. 
Several gondolas, — a sort of long, narrow, flat- 
bottomed craft, — thirty longboats, and 400 bat- 
teaux were hauled up the rapids by the amphibi- 
ous Canadians, with an immense expenditure of 
toil and vociferous jabber. By the 1st of October 
the fleet was ready to enter the lake, and con- 
sisted of the Inflexible, carrying eighteen guns ; the 
schooners, Maria and Carleton, carrying fourteen 
and twelve respectively ; and the Thunderer, a float- 
ing battery of raft-like construction, mounting six 



134 VERMONT. 

twenty-fours, as many sixes, and two howitzers; 
with a number of gondolas, gunboats, and long- 
boats, each carrying one gun. It was manned 
by 700 experienced seamen, and commanded by 
Captain Pringle. In opposing this formidable 
fleet, so vastly superior in all its appointments, in 
everything but the bravery of officers and men, 
the odds were fearfully against the Americans, but 
the intrepid Arnold did not hesitate to accept the 
chances. 

The sails of the British squadron were whit- 
ening the lake beyond Cumberland Head when 
Arnold disposed his vessels behind the island of 
Valcour, where, screened from sight of the main 
channel by woods whose gorgeous leafage was yet 
unthinned by the frosty touch that painted it, he 
awaited the approach of the enemy. Sailing past 
the island, the British discovered the little fleet of 
the Americans, and, conscious of their own superi- 
ority, at once advanced to the attack from the 
southward; but the wind, which before had favored 
them, was now against them. The flagship In- 
flexible, and some others of the larger vessels, could 
not be brought into action, and the Carleton and 
the gunboats took the brunt of the battle. 

For four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained 
with the utmost bravery by both combatants* The 
forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder, 
whose roar was heard at Crown Point, forty miles 
away, and the autumnal haze grew thick with sul- 
phurous smoke. General Waterbury, commanding 



LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 135 

the Washington galley, was in the hottest of it, 
and only brought his shattered vessel out of the 
fight when all but two of his officers were killed 
or wounded. One of the American schooners was 
burnt, a gondola sunk, and several other vessels 
much injured ; while the British had two gondolas 
sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. 
Toward nightfall, Captain Pringle withdrew the 
vessels engaged, and anchored his whole fleet across 
the channel to prevent the escape of the Ameri- 
cans. Escape was all that Arnold hoped for now, 
and in the darkness of night he silently got his 
vessels around the north end of Valcour, 1 and, 
making all speed southward, was out of sight of 
his enemy when daylight came. 

The British gave chase, and overtaking the 
Americans at Split Rock, about noon of the 13th, 
at once began firing on them. The sorely crip- 
pled Washington was forced to strike her colors 
after receiving a few broadsides. Arnold fought 
his flagship, the Congress galley, with desperate 
courage, while, within musket-shot, the Inflexible 
poured broadsides into her, and two schooners 
raked her from astern. He effectually covered the 

1 There are conflicting 1 statements concerning 1 Arnold's course 
in eluding the British fleet. According to some authorities he 
slipped directly through the enemy's line under cover of thick 
darkness ; others state circumstantially that he escaped around 
the north end of Valcour, and this unobstructed course certainly 
seems the one which would naturally he taken, instead of attempt- 
ing the almost impossible feat of passing through a fleet that 
guarded the channel, barely half a mile in width. 



136 VERMONT. 

retreat of his escaping- vessels with the Congress 
and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the 
shoal head of a little bay on the eastern side of 
the lake. He set fire to the vessels, and keeping 
his flag flying on the Congress, which he did 
not quit till she was enveloped in flames, got all 
his men landed but one wounded lieutenant, who, 
forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with 
his vessel. Of the American fleet, only two gal- 
leys, two schooners, a sloop, and gondola had es- 
caped ; and toward Ticonderoga, whither these had 
fled, Arnold retreated with his stranded crews, 
barely escaping an Indian ambuscade. Joined by 
the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled 
along the rough forest road, behind them rolling 
the irregular boom of the cannon, exploding as the 
fire heated them, and at intervals the thunder of a 
bursting magazine. Throughout that long, unequal 
combat, as in many another in the same good 
cause, Arnold bore himself with cool, intrepid 
valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from hon- 
orable death to achieve everlasting infamy. The 
land-locked bay, where may yet be seen the oaken 
skeletons of his brave little craft, 1 bears his name, 
nowhere else honorably commemorated in all his 
native land. 

General Carleton, who accompanied the British 
fleet, gave orders that the prisoners taken should 

1 Years afterward, a brass gun was raised from one of these 
wrecks, and played its part in gaining the naval victory at 
Plattahurgh. 



LAKE CHAMPLAW. 137 

be treated with the greatest kindness. He himself 
praised their bravery, and sent them home on pa- 
role. By this politic course he so won their esteem, 
that it was deemed impolitic to permit them to min- 
gle with the troops at Ticonderoga, and they were 
sent on to Skenesborough. 

Following close on the heels of the victorious 
fleet came the swarming transports bearing Gen- 
eral Carleton's army, with the intention of moving 
at once upon Ticonderoga. Crown Point was no 
longer an obstacle, for when news of the disaster 
of their fleet was brought to that post, the Ameri- 
cans set fire to the place, destroyed everything that 
could not be removed, and withdrew to the main 
army holding Ticonderoga. But the wind, which 
had been a fickle ally of the English since they 
began this invasion, again turned against them 
from the south on the 14th, and held stiffly in 
that quarter for eight days. General Carleton's 
transports could make no headway against it up 
the narrow waterway, and he was obliged to land 
his forces at Crown Point. Thence he sent re- 
connoitring parties on both sides of the lake toward 
Ticonderoga, and some vessels up the channel, 
sounding it within cannon-shot of the fort. 

Meanwhile Gates's army made most of the time 
given by the kindly autumnal gale. The works 
were strengthened and surrounded by an abatis. 
In these eight days, carriages were built for forty- 
seven pieces of cannon and the guns mounted ; 
while reinforcements that came in, and sick men 



138 VERMONT. 

recovered, swelled the army to 1,200 strong. 
Carleton's opportunity for an easy conquest of 
Ticonderoga was past, and his reconnoissances 
gave him no encouragement to attempt an assault. 
Therefore, after tarrying at the fire-scathed fortress 
till past the middle of November, when the wild 
geese were flying southward over the gray and 
desolate forests, and the herbage of the clearings 
was seared by the touch of many frosts, he reem- 
barked his army and returned to Canada. Gen- 
eral Gates at once dismissed the militia, active 
military operations ceased in this quarter, and the 
northern armies of America and Great Britain be- 
gan their hibernation. 



CHAPTER X. 

VERMONT AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 

At the beginning of the Revolution, the people 
of the New Hampshire Grants were without a reg- 
ular form of government, for the greater part of 
them had long refused to submit to the jurisdiction 
of the royal government of New York, and were 
now as little disposed to compromise their asserted 
rights by acknowledging the authority of that 
province when it had taken its place among the 
United Colonies in revolt against Great Britain. 
Such government as existed was vested in Com- 
mittees of Safety, but these, whether of greater or 
lesser scope, were without recognized power to 
enforce their decrees upon the respectable minor- 
ity which still adhered to New York. 

Under these circumstances a convention, warned 
by the Committee of Safety of Arlington, met at 
Dorset, January 16, 1776, at the " house of Cephas 
Kent, innholder." Persons were appointed to rep- 
resent the caSe"of the Grants before Congress by a 
" Remonstrance and Petition." This stated that 
inhabitants of the Grants were willing, as hereto- 
fore, to do all in their power for the common cause, 
but were not willing to act under the authority of 



140 VERMONT. 

New York, lest it might be deemed an acknowledg- 
ment of its claims and prejudicial to their own, and 
desired to perform military service as inhabitants 
of the Grants instead of New York. 

Upon the return of Heman Allen, who duly 
presented the memorial to Congress, a second con- 
vention was held in July at the same place, thirty- 
two towns being represented by forty-nine delegates. 
Allen reported that Congress, after hearing their 
petition, ordered it to lie upon the table for fur- 
ther consideration, but that he withdrew it, lest 
the opposing New York delegates should bring the 
matter to final decision w T hen no delegate from the 
Grants was present. Several members of Congress 
and other gentlemen, in private conversation, ad- 
vised the people of the Grants to do their utmost to 
repel invasions of the enemy, but by no means to 
act under the authority of New York ; while the 
committee of Congress to whom the matter was 
referred, while urging them to the same exertions, 
advised them, for the present, to submit to New 
York, saying this submission ought not to prejudice 
their right to the lands in question. 

The convention resolved at once M That Appli- 
cation be made to the Inhabitants of said Grants, 
to form the^ame into a separate District." The 
convention laconically declared that " the Spirited 
Conflict," which had so long continued between the 
Grants and New York, rendered it " inconvenient 
in many respects to associate with that province." 
But, to prove their readiness to join in the common 



AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 141 

defense of America, they, with one exception only, 
subscribed to the following association : " We the 
subscribers inhabitants of that District of Land, 
commonly called and known by the name of the 
New Hampshire Grants, do voluntarily and Sol- 
emnly Engage under all the ties held sacred 
amongst Mankind at the Risque of our Lives and 
fortunes to Defend, by arms, the United American 
States against the Hostile attempts of the British 
Fleets and Armies, until the present unhappy Con- 
troversy between the two Countries shall be settled." 

The convention invited all the inhabitants to 
subscribe to this " Association," and resolved that 
any who should unite with a similar one under 
the authority of New York should be deemed an 
enemy to the cause of the Grants, Persons were 
appointed to procure the signature of every male 
inhabitant of sixteen years upwards, both on the 
east and west sides of the Green Mountains. 
Thus the convention took the first formal steps 
toward severing the connection with New York, 
and uniting all the towns within the Grants in a 
common league. 

Only one town on the east side of the mountains 
was represented in this meeting ; but pains were 
taken to confer with those inhabitants, and at the 
adjourned session, in September, ten eastern towns 
were represented. At this session it was voted 
that the inhabitants should be governed by the re- 
solves of this or a similar convention " not repug- 
nant to the resolves of Congress," and that in fu- 



142 VERMONT. 

ture no law or direction received from New York 
should be accepted or obeyed. The power was 
assumed of regulating the militia, and furnishing 
troops for the common defense. For the especial\ 
safe-keeping of Tories, a jail was ordered to be\\ 
built at Manchester. It was to be constructed J j 
with double walls of logs, eighteen inches apart, / / 
the space to be filled with earth to the height of y 
seven feet, " floored with logs double." The con- 
vention appointed a " Committee of War," vested 
with power to call out the militia for the defense 
of the Grants or any part of the continent. Fines 
were exacted from every officer and private who 
should not comply with the orders of the conven- 
tion ; and each non-commissioned officer and pri- 
vate was required to " provide himself with a suit- 
able gun and one pound of powder, four pounds of 
bullets fit for his gun, six flints, a powder horn, 
cartouch box or bullet pouch, a sword, bayonet, or 
tomahawk." 

The convention adjourned to meet at West- 
minster on the 30th of October. When that day 
arrived, the country was in great alarm from the 
disaster to the American fleet on Lake Champlain, 
and Carle ton's advance toward Ticonderoga. The 
militia was hurrying to the defense of that fortress, 
and many delegates were kept at home by the 
impending need of protection for their families. 
Owing to these circumstances, the few who met 
could not be informed of the minds of the people, 
and it adjourned to the 15th of January, 1777. 



AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 143 

During this interim, the popular sentiment had so 
rapidly ripened for the proposed separation that, 
when the convention met, little time was spent in 
debate before the adoption of a Declaration of the 
Independence of the New Hampshire Grants. As 
revised for publication it is as follows : " We will 
at all times hereafter, consider ourselves as a free 
and independent state, capable of regulating our 
internal police in all and every respect whatsoever, 
and that the people on said Grants have the sole 
and exclusive and inherent right of ruling and 
governing themselves in such manner and form as 
in their own wisdom they shall think proper, not 
inconsistent or repugnant to any resolve of the 
Honorable Continental Congress. 

" Furthermore, we declare by all the ties which 
are held sacred among men, that we will firmly 
stand by and support one another in this our dec- 
laration of a State, and in endeavoring as much 
as in us lies to suppress all unlawful routs and dis- 
turbances whatever. Also we will endeavor to se- 
cure to every individual his life, peace, and prop 
erty against all unlawful invaders of the same. 

44 Lastly, we hereby declare, that we are at all 
times ready, in conjunction with our brethren in the 
United States of America, to do our full propor- 
tion in maintaining and supporting the just war 
against the tyrannical invasions of the ministerial 
fleets and armies, as well as any other foreign ene- 
mies, sent with express purpose to murder our fel- 
low brethren and with fire and sword to ravage our 
defenseless country. 



144 VERMONT. 

"The said State hereafter to be called by the 
name of New Connecticut," 

This bold and decisive act, by which a free and 
independent commonwealth was erected, was with 
eminent fitness consummated in the court-house at 
Westminster, a place already consecrated to the/ 
cause of liberty by the blood of William French,/ 
who, less than two years before, had fallen there 
in defense of the people's rights. 

A " Declaration and Petition," announcing the 
step taken and asking that the new State might be 
"ranked among the free and independent Amer- 
ican States," was prepared and sent to Congress, 
The action of the people of the Grants was received 
in a not unfriendly spirit by the New England 
States ; but New York at once made an earnest 
protest to Congress against it, and demanded the 
recall of the commission of Colonel Warner au- 
thorizing him to raise a continental regiment in 
the disaffected district, emphasizing the demand 
by reminding Congress of Warner's outlawry by 
the "late government." Considering the attitude 
of Congress and all the colonies toward the royal 
source of the " late government " of New York, 
this seems an absurd argument for the recall of 
Warner's commission. Fortunately for the cause 
which that brave officer so faithfully and efficiently 
served, the insolent demand was not complied with. 

The adjourned convention met at Windsor in 
June with seventy-two delegates from fifty towns. 
One of their earliest transactions was to relieve the 



AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 145 

young* State from the ridiculous name which was 
first bestowed upon it. It was discovered that 
a district lying on the Susquehanna was already 
known as New Connecticut, whereupon the con- 
vention rechristened the infant State " Vermont." 
This most befitting name was suggested by Dr. 
Thomas Young of Philadelphia, a firm friend of 
the defenders of the Grants. In the previous 
April he had addressed a circular letter to them, 
advising them to act in accordance with a resolu- 
tion of Congress passed in May, 1776, which recom- 
mended to the respective assemblies of the United 
Colonies, where no sufficient government had been 
established, to adopt such government as should 
appear to the representatives of the people most 
conducive to the happiness and safety of their con- 
stituents. He advised a general convention of 
delegates from all the towns to form a Constitu- 
tion for the State, to choose a Committee of Safety, 
and also delegates to Congress, declaring Congress 
could not refuse to admit their delegates. " You 
have," said he, " as good a right to say how you 
will be governed, and by whom, as they had." Dr. 
Young's letter called forth another earnest protest 
from New York to Congress, and that body declared 
that the action of the people of the Grants was not 
countenanced by any of its acts. The petition of 
Vermont was dismissed, the commission of Warner 
apologized for, and Dr. Young censured for a 
" gross misrepresentation of the resolution of Con- 
gress " referred to in his letter. Dr. Young rec- 



146 VERMONT. 

ommended to the new commonwealth, as a model 
for a Constitution, that of Pennsylvania, an instru- 
ment whose essential features originated in Penn's 
"Framp of Government" of that province. His 
advice was followed, and a very similar Constitu- 
tion was adopted early in July, 1777. 

When, for this purpose, after a short adjourn- 
ment, the convention met at the Windsor meeting- 
house, all Vermont was in alarm at the British in- 
vasion which was sweeping upon its western bor- 
der. Almost at first the attention of the delegates 
was called to the impending peril of Ticonderoga 
by an appeal for aid from Colonel Warner. This 
was at once forwarded to the Assembly of New 
Hampshire, and such measures as seemed best, 
which elicited the warm thanks of General St. 
Clair, were taken by the convention for the relief 
of the threatened fortress. Some of the members, 
among whom was the president, the patriotic Joseph 
Bowker of Rutland, whose families were in ex- 
posed situations, were now anxious for an adjourn- 
ment ; but a furious thunder-storm came roaring 
up the Connecticut valley, and the storm-bound con- 
vention took up its appointed work, reading and 
adopting, one by one, the articles of the Constitu- 
tion amid the turmoil of the tempest. 

To the first section of the declaration of rights, 
which announced that " glittering generality," the 
natural rights of man to life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness, this specific clause was added : 
" Therefore no male person born in this country, or 



AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 147 

brought from over sea, ought to be holclen by law 
to serve any person as a servant, slave, or appren- 
tice after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years, 
nor female in like manner after she arrives to the 
age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by 
their own consent after they arrive to such age, or 
bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, 
fines, costs, or the like." 

"Vermont was thus the first of the States to 
prohibit slavery by constitutional provision, a fact 
of which Vermonters may well be proud," says 
Hiland Hall in his " Early History.", 

Religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the 
press, were also established. The form of govern- 
ment was thoroughly democratic. Every man of 
the full age of twenty-one years, who had resided 
in the State for one year, was given the elective 
franchise, and was eligible to any office in the 
State. The legislative power was vested in a single 
assembly of members chosen annually by ballot. 
Each town was to have one representative, and 
towns having more than eighty taxable inhabitants 
were entitled to two. The executive authority was 
in a governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve 
councillors, elected annually by all the freemen in 
the State. They had no negative power, but it 
was provided that " all bills of a public nature 
should be laid before them, for their perusal and 
proposals of amendment," before they were finally 
debated in the General Assembly. Such bills were 
to be printed for the information of the people, and 



148 VERMONT. 

not to be enacted into laws until the next session 
of the assembly. " Temporary acts " in cases of 
"sudden emergency" might, however, be passed 
without this delay. Compliance with this article was 
found so difficult that nearly all laws were treated 
as temporary, and declared permanent at the next 
session. Bills could originate in the council as 
well as in the house of assembly ; and in cases of 
disagreement between the two bodies upon any 
measure, it was usually discussed in grand com- 
mittee composed of both, the governor presiding. 
The final disposition of a measure was according 
to the pleasure of the house, but the advisory power 
of the governor and council was a strong check 
upon hasty legislation. In 1786 the provision for 
printing and postponing the passage of laws was 
expunged, and the governor and council were au- 
thorized to suspend the operation of a bill until 
the next session of the legislature, when, to become 
a law, it must again be passed by the assembly. 
Judges of inferior courts, sheriffs, justices of the 
peace, and judges of probate were elected by the free- 
men of the respective counties, to hold office during 
good behavior, removable by the assembly on proof 
of maladministration. The mode of choosing judges 
of superior courts was left to the discretion of the 
legislature, and they were elected annually by joint 
ballot of the council and assembly. When the 
Constitution was revised in 1786, it was provided 
that county officers should be annually chosen in 
the same manner. 



AN INDEPENDENT COMMONWEALTH. 149 

The Constitution provided for an election, by the 
freemen of the State, of a Council of Censors, con- 
sisting of thirteen members, first to be chosen on 
the last Wednesday of March, 1785, and there- 
after on the same day in every seventh year. It 
was the duty of this body to inquire whether the 
Constitution had been preserved inviolate, and 
whether the legislature and executive branches of 
government had performed their duty as guardians 
of the people, or had assumed greater powers than 
they were constitutionally entitled to. They were 
to inquire whether public taxes had been justly 
laid and collected, in what manner the public 
moneys had been disposed of, and whether the laws 
had been duly executed. The council was also em- 
powered to call a convention, to meet within two 
years after their sitting, if there appeared to them 
an absolute necessity of any change in the Con- 
stitution, the proposed changes to be promulgated 
at least six months before the election of such 
convention, for the previous consideration of the 
people. This provision of the Constitution, though 
useless if no worse, was nevertheless a great fa- 
vorite of the people of Vermont, and remained a 
prominent and unique feature of that instrument 
till 1870, when it was abrogated by the last con- 
vention called by a Council of Censors. 

"This frame of government," writes Hiland Hall 
of the early Constitution, " continued in operation 
long after the State had become a member of the 
Federal Union, furnishing the people with as much 



150 VERMONT. 

security for their persons and property as was en- 
joyed by those of other States, and allowing to each 
individual citizen all the liberty which was con- 
sistent with the welfare of others." 

Such are the main features of the Vermont Con- 
stitution established by the Windsor convention. 
An election of state officers was ordered to be held 
in the ensuing December, to be followed by a meet- 
ing of the legislature in January, and a Council 
of Safety was appointed to manage the affairs of 
the State during the intervening time. 



CHAPTER XL 

TICONDEROGA ; HUBBARDTON. 

Notwithstanding all that Sir Guy Carleton 
had accomplished in driving the American army 
from Canada, and regaining control of Lake 
Champlain as far as Ticonderoga, his management 
of the campaigns had not fully satisfied the minis- 
try. He was blamed for dismissing his Indian 
allies when he found it impossible to prevent their 
killing and scalping of prisoners ; and he was 
blamed that, with a well-appointed army of invin- 
cible Britons, he had" not in one campaign utterly 
destroyed or dispersed the rabble rout of colonial 
rebels. Consequently the command of the army 
in Canada, designed for offensive operations, was 
given to Sir John Burgoyne, a court favorite ; 
while Carleton, the far abler general, was left in 
command only of the 3,700 troops reserved for the 
defense of the province. 

In June, Burgoyne's army of more than 7,000 
regular troops embarked at St. John's, and made 
undisputed progress up the lake to the mouth of 
the Bouquet. Here it encamped on the deserted 
estate of William Gilliland, who had bought an 
immense tract in this region and made a settle- 



152 VERMONT. 

ment at the falls of the Bouquet in 1765, but 
was obliged to abandon it during the war. At 
this place the Indians were assembled, Iroquois 
and Waubanakees gathered under one banner, and 
alike hungry for scalps and plunder. Burgoyne 
addressed them in a grandiloquent speech, modeled 
in the supposed style of aboriginal eloquence, ex- 
horting them to deeds of valor, to be tempered with 
a humanity impossible to the savages, and was 
briefly answered by an old chief of the Iroquois. 

Moving forward to Crown Point, the army 
briefly rested there before advancing upon Ticon- 
deroga. The general issued a proclamation to the 
inhabitants, inviting all who would to join him, 
and offering protection to such as remained quietly 
at their homes, and in no way obstructed the 
operations of his army, or assisted his enemies ; 
while those who did not accept his clemency were 
threatened with the horrors of Indian warfare. 
Having delivered himself of speech and proclama- 
tion, Burgoyne continued his advance on Ticon- 
deroga. 

The post was not in the best condition for de- 
fense, as General Schuyler, now commanding the 
Northern Department, discovered when visiting it 
while Burgoyne was airing his eloquence at the 
Bouquet. The old French lines had been somewhat 
strengthened, and block-houses built on the right 
and left of them. More labor had been expended 
on the defenses of Mount Independence, a water 
battery erected at the fort, and another battery 



TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON. 153 

half way up the declivity. Communication be- 
tween the forts was maintained by a bridge thrown 
across the lake, consisting of twenty-two piers, con- 
nected by floats fifty feet long and twenty wide. 
On the lower side, this bridge was protected by a 
boom of immense timbers fastened together by 
double chains of inch and a half square iron. To 
garrison these extensive works, General St. Clair, 
now the commander of Ticonderoga, had but few 
more than 2,500 Continental troops, and 900 poorty 
armed and equipped militia. He had been un- 
willing to call in more of the militia, for fear of 
a failure of supplies. 

But a danger more potent than the weakness of 
the garrison lurked in the silent heights of Sugar 
Loaf Hill, now better known as Mount Defiance, 
that, westward from Ticonderoga, and overlooking 
it and all its outworks, bars the horizon with rugged 
steeps of rock and sharp incline of woodland. 
Colonel John Trumbull, of Revolutionary and ar- 
tistic fame, had suggested to General Gates the ad- 
visability of fortifying it, saying that it commanded 
both Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. The 
idea was ridiculed, and he obtained leave to test 
the truth of Jjis assertion. A shot from a twelve- 
pounder on Mount Independence struck half way 
up the mountain, and a six-pound shot fired from 
the glacis of Ticonderoga struck near the summit. 
Yet the Americans did not occupy it then, nor 
now, though a consultation was held concerning 
it. It was decided that there were not men enough 



154 VERMONT. 

to spare for the purpose from the fortifications al- 
ready established. St. Clair hoped, moreover, that 
Burgoyne would choose rather to assault than be- 
siege his position, and an assault he thought he 
might successfully repel. 

The General Convention now sitting at Windsor 
sent Colonel Mead, James Mead, Ira Allen, and 
Captain Salisbury to consult with the commander 
of Ticonderoga on the defense of the frontier. 
While this committee was there, General Burgoyne 
advanced up the lake, and during his stay at Crown 
Point sent a force of 300, most of whom were Indi- 
ans, to the mouth of Otter Creek to raid upon the 
settlers. The committee was refused any troops for 
the defense of the frontiers, but Colonel Warner 
was allowed to go with them, and presently raised 
men enough to repel this invasion. 

On the 1st of July Warner wrote from Rut- 
land to the convention that the enemy had come up 
the lake with seventeen or eighteen gunboats, two 
large ships, and other craft, and an attack was ex- 
pected every hour ; that he was ordered to call out 
the militia of Vermont, Massachusetts, and New 
Hampshire, to join him as soon as possible, and 
desired them to call out the militia on the east 
side of the mountain, and to send forty or fifty 
head of beef cattle for Ticonderoga. " I shall be 
glad," he writes in conclusion, "if a few hills of 
corn unhoed should not be a motive sufficient to 
detain men at home, considering the loss of such 
an important post might be irretrievable." In 



TICONDEROGA; 1IUBBARDT0N. 155 

view of the impending invasion of the British, the 
convention appointed a day of- fasting and prayer, 
but this pious measure had no apparent effect on 
the movements of the enemy, and Burgoyne con- 
tinued to advance. 

His army moved forward on either side of the 
lake, the war-craft to an anchorage just out of range 
of the guns of Ticonderoga and Mount Indepen- 
dence. The Americans abandoned and set on fire 
the block-houses and sawmills towards Lake Georsre, 
with which the communications were now cut off. 

On the 2d of July a British force of 500, com- 
manded by Frazier, attacked and drove in the 
American pickets, and, the right wing moving 
up, took possession of Mount Hope. St. Clair ex- 
pected an assault, and ordered his men to conceal 
themselves behind the breastworks, and reserve 
their fire. Frazier's force, not perceiving the posi- 
tion of the Americans, screened as it was by bushes, 
continued to advance till an American soldier fired 
his musket, when the whole line delivered a ran- 
dom volley, followed by a thunderous discharge of 
artillery, all without orders, and without effect but 
to kill one of the assailants, and raise a cloud of 
smoke that hung in the hot, breathless air till the 
assailants had escaped behind it out of range. 

The possibilities of Mount Defiance had not es- 
caped the eyes of the British engineers, and they 
were at once accepted. General Phillips set him- 
self to the task of making a road up the rocky de- 
clivities, over which heavy siege guns were already 



156 VERMONT. 

being hauled. When, on the morning of the 5th of 
July, the sun's first rays shot far above the shad- 
owed valley, they lighted to a ruddier glow the 
scarlet uniforms of a swarm of British soldiers on 
the bald summit, busy in the construction of a bat- 
tery. 

St. Clair called a council of his officers, and it 
was decided that it was impossibile to hold the 
place, and the only safety of the army was in im- 
mediate evacuation. This was undertaken that 
night. The baggage, stores, and all the artillery 
that could be got away, embarked on 200 batteaux, 
set forth for Skenesborough under the convoy of 
five galleys. The main army was to march to 
Castleton, and thence to Skenesborough. At two 
o'clock on the morning of the 6th of July, St. 
Clair moved out of Ticonderoga. Sorrowfully the 
Green Mountain Boys relinquished, with almost 
as little bloodshed as two years before they had 
gained it, the fortress that guarded the frontier of 
their country. 

The troops fled across the bridge in silence to 
the eastern shore, and an hour later the garrison 
of Mount Independence began moving out. So 
far, the doleful work of evacuation had progressed 
with such secrecy that the British were unaware 
of any movement. Just then a French officer of 
the garrison, zealous to destroy what he could not 
save, set fire to his house. The sun-dried wooden 
structure was ablaze in an instant, lighting up with 
a lurid glare all the works of the place, the hurry- 



TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON. 157 

ing troops, the forest border with ghastly ranks of 
towering tree-trunks, the bridge still undulating 
with the tread of just-departed marching columns, 
and the slow throb of waves pulsing across the 
empty anchorage and -breaking against deserted 
shores. _ 

All was revealed to the British on the heights 
of Mount Defiance, and this sudden discovery of 
their movements threw the Americans into great 
confusion, many hurrying away in disorderly re- 
treat. But about four o'clock Colonel Francis of 
Massachusetts brought off the rear in good order, 
and some of the other regiments were soon recov- 
ered from the panic into which they had fallen. 

At Hubbardton the army halted for a rest of 
two hours, during which time many stragglers came 
in, then St. Clair with the main body pressed on 
to Castleton, six miles distant. On that same day 
Hubbardton had already been raided by Captain 
Sherwood and a party of Indians and Tories. Of 
the nine families that composed the entire popu- 
lation of the town, most of the men had been taken 
prisoners, and the defenseless women and children 
left to whatever fate might befall them in their 
plundered homes, or to make their forlorn way 
through the wilderness to the shelter of the older 
settlements. To Warner was again committed the 
covering of a retreat. He was here put in com- 
mand of the rear-guard, consisting of his own, 
Francis's, and Hale's regiments, with orders to re- 
main till all stragglers should have come in, and 



158 VERMONT. 

then follow a mile and a half in the rear of the 
main army. 

When the retreat of the Americans was discov- 
ered, General Frazier set forth in hot pursuit with 
his brigade, presently followed by General Kie- 
desel with the greater part of the Brunswickers. 
Frazier kept his force on the march all through 
the hot summer day, in burning sunshine and 
breathless shade of the woods till nightfall, when, 
learning that the American rear was not far in ad- 
vance, he ordered a halt till morning. Pushing 
forward again at daybreak, he came up with his 
enemy at five o'clock, and advanced to within sixty 
yards of the American line of battle, formed across 
the road and in the adjacent fields. Colonel Hale 
of New Hampshire, with Falstaffian valor, had pru- 
dently withdrawn his regiment, leaving Warner 
and Francis with not more than 800 men, to bear 
the brunt of the impending battle. 

The action began at seven with a volley deliv- 
ered by these two regiments upon the British, who 
returned it as hotly. The men of the Massachu- 
setts border and the mountaineers of Vermont 
had no lead to waste in aimless firing, and held 
rifle and musket straight on the advancing columns 
of the enemy. Trained to cut off a partridge's 
head with a single ball at thirty yards, they did 
not often miss the burly form of a Briton at twice 
the distance, and their volleys made frightful gaps 
in the scarlet line. It wavered and broke. War- 
ner and Francis cheered on their men, Francis still 



TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON. 159 

leading his regiment after a ball had struck him 
in the right arm. The British line closed up, and 
charged upon the Americans, throwing them into 
disorder till Warner rallied them, and checked the 
British advance. While the fluctuating chances 
of the fight favored the Americans, Francis fell, 
pierced by a bullet in the breast, and, seeing him 
fall, his men faltered and began to retreat. When 
Warner saw them scattering in disorderly flight, 
he was overcome with wrath. He dropped upon 
a log, and poured forth a storm of curses upon the 
fugitives. 1 But it did not stop them, nor, if it had, 
would it have availed to avert defeat. Biedesel 
came up with his Brunswickers, who had toiled 
onward in the burning heat for nine hours as 
bravely as if they were conquering the country for 
themselves. They at once engaged in the action, 
and the Americans were everywhere routed, fleeing 
across a little brook, and scattering in the shelter 
of the woods beyond it. 

Collecting most of his regiment, with his accus- 
tomed cool intrepidity, Warner retreated to Castle- 
ton. The others made their way to Fort Edward. 
Hale in his retreat had fallen in with a small de- 
tachment of the enemy, to which he surrendered 
with a number of his regiment without firing a 
shot. Learning that he was charged with coward- 
ice, he asked to be exchanged, that he might have 
an opportunity to disprove the charge, but he died 
while a prisoner on Long Island. St. Clair sent 
1 Chipman's Life of Warner. 



160 VERMONT. 

no assistance to his friends. Writing to General 
Schuyler of the affair, he said, " The rear-guard 
stopped rather imprudently six miles short of the 
main body," when in fact Warner remained at 
Hubbardton as ordered, while St. Clair himself 
advanced beyond supporting distance. 

In this first battle of the Revolution on Vermont 
soil, the Americans lost Francis, an officer whose 
bravery was acknowledged by friend and foe, and 
whose early death was mourned by both. In 
killed, wounded, and prisoners, their loss was 324. 
The loss of the British force, — about 2,000 strong, 
— in killed and wounded, was not less than 183. 
Ethan Allen, in his narrative, sets the enemy's 
loss, as learned from confessions of their own 
officers, at 300. Among these was the brave Major 
Grant, who, while reconnoitring the position of 
the Americans from the top of a stump, was 
picked off by a Yankee rifleman. " I heard them 
likewise complain that the Green Mountain Boys 
took sight," Allen tells us. 

Meanwhile Burgoyne was busy on the lake. 
By nine o'clock on the morning of the evacuation, 
the unfinished boom and the bridge were cut 
asunder ; the gunboats and the two frigates passed 
these obstructions, and, with several regiments on 
board, went up the channel in rapid pursuit of the 
American vessels. At three in the afternoon the 
gunboats got within range of the galleys, not far 
from Skenesborough, and opened fire upon them. 
This was returned with some warmth till the 



TICONDEROGA; HUBBARDTON. 161 

frigates were brought into action, when the gal- 
leys were abandoned, three were blown up, and 
the other two fell into the hands of the enemy. 
Having neither the men nor defenses here to offer 
any effectual opposition, the Americans set fire to 
the fort, mills, and batteaux, and fled up Wood 
Creek toward Fort Anne. They were pursued by 
Colonel Hill with the Ninth British Regiment, 
upon whom they turned, and attacked furiously 
in front with part of their force, while the other 
wag sent to assail his rear. Hill withdrew to an 
eminence, whither the attack followed so hotly 
that his complete defeat seemed almost certain, 
when a large party of Indians came up. They 
made the woods ring with the terrible war whoop, 
which the British answered with three lusty cheers, 
and the uproar of rejoicing convinced the Amer- 
icans that a strong reinforcement was at hand ; 
whereupon they drew off, and, again marking the 
course of their retreat with conflagration by set- 
ting fire to Fort Anne, retired to Fort Edward. 
On the 12th, here also St. Clair joined the main 
army under Schuyler, after a weary march over 
wretched roads. 

England was exultant over the fall of famous 
Ticonderoga. The king rushed into the queen's 
apartments, shouting, "I have beaten them! I 
have beaten all the Americans!" and such was 
the universal feeling in the mother country. In 
America was as universal consternation, which 
onlv found relief in storms of abuse poured upon 



162 VERMONT. 

St. Clair and upon Schuyler, who, as commander 
of the northern army, received his full share of 
blame, though both had done the best their cir- 
cumstances permitted. 

Yet it proved not such a disaster to the Amer- 
icans, nor such an advantage to the British, as it 
then appeared to each. Burgoyne was obliged to 
weaken his army by leaving an eighth of it to gar- 
rison a post that proved to be of no especial value 
to him, when, after a rapid and an almost unop- 
posed advance to the head of the lake, he began 
to encounter serious hindrances to his progress. 

For some days he continued at Skenesborough, 
and issued thence a second proclamation to the 
people of the Grants, offering to those who should 
meet Colonel Skene at Castleton " terms by which 
the disobedient may yet be spared." Schuyler ad- 
dressed a counter proclamation to the same people, 
warning them that, if they made terms with the 
enemy, they would be treated as traitors ; and he 
continually urged them to remove all cattle and 
carriages beyond reach of the enemy. 

Schuyler had two brigades of militia and Conti- 
nentals busily employed in destroying bridges, and 
obstructing roads by felling huge trees across them, 
and, in all ways that expert axemen and woodsmen 
could devise, making difficult the passage of an 
army. Having accomplished this, Schuyler aban- 
doned Fort Edward, which was in no condition for 
defense, and fell back to Stillwater, thirty miles 
above Albany D 



TJCONDEROGA; BUBBARDTON. 163 

When Burgoyne began to advance toward Fort 
Edward, his progress was slow and tedious. The 
obstructed channel of Wood Creek was cleared to 
Fort Anne, roads cleared and repaired, and forty 
bridges rebuilt, before, at the snail's pace of a mile 
in twenty-four hours, he reached Fort Edward. 
When, on the 30th of July, he established his 
headquarters here on the Hudson, there was great 
rejoicing in his army ; for now it was thought all 
serious obstacles were past, and the safe and easy 
path to Albany lay open before them. 

The fall of Ticonderoga and the almost un- 
checked invasion of their country created a panic 
among the settlers of western Vermont. Bur- 
goyne's threat of turning loose his Indian allies 
upon the obdurate incensed most and alarmed all 
who were exposed to the horrors of such cruel 
warfare. A few half-hearted Whigs, who became 
known as Protectioners, — a name but little less 
opprobrious than Tory, — availed themselves of his 
proffered clemency, and sought the protection of 
his army ; and a few Tories seized the opportunity 
now offered to take the side to which they had 
always inclined. 

All the farms in the exposed region were aban- 
doned, the owners carrying away such of their 
effects as could be hastily removed on horseback 
and in their few carts and wagons, and, driving 
their stock before them, hurried toward a place of 
refuge. The main highways leading southward — • 
at fords, bridges, and the almost impassable mud- 



164 VERMONT. 

holes that were common to the new-country roads 
— were choked with horsemen, footmen, lumbering 
vehicles heavily laden with women, children, and 
house-gear, and with struggling and straying flocks 
and herds. 



CHAPTER XII. 

BENNINGTON. 

When the convention adjourned at Windsor, 
July 8, 1877, Ticonderoga had fallen; Burgoyne's 
splendid army was advancing along the western 
border of Vermont ; Warner had made his brave 
but ineffectual stand at Hubbardton, and was now 
with the remnant of his regiment at Manchester. 

Hither the Council of Safety at once proceeded, 
and, with Thomas Chittenden as its president, be- 
gan its important labors. It issued a call to all 
officers of militia to send on all the men they could 
possibly raise, as they had learned that a " large 
Scout of the Enemy are disposed to take a Tour to 
this Post," and their aim seemed to be the Conti- 
nental stores at Bennington. On the same day, 
Ira Allen, as secretary, sent the alarming news to 
General Schuyler, with an appeal for aid; but 
Schuyler, as a Continental officer, declined to " no- 
tice a fourteenth State unknown to the Confed- 
eracy," and could send no men but the militia 
under Colonel Simmonds, whom he had ordered to 
join Colonel Warner at Manchester, 

Allen also wrote to the New Hampshire Council 
of Safety for assistance in making a stand against 



166 VERMONT. 

the enemy in Vermont, which might as well be 
made there as in New Hampshire ; for, " notwith- 
standing its infancy, the State was as well supplied 
with provisions for victualling an army as any 
country on the continent." Meshech Weare, presi- 
dent of that State, replied that New Hampshire 
had already determined to send assistance, and 
one fourth of her militia was to be formed into 
three battalions, under command of Brigadier-Gen- 
eral John Stark, and sent forthwith into Vermont. 
President Weare requested the Convention of Ver- 
mont to send some suitable person to Number 
Four, to confer with General Stark as to the route 
and disposition of the troops ; and two trusty per- 
sons were accordingly sent by Colonel Warner. 
On the 19th, Stark received his orders to repair 
to Number Four, and take command of the force 
there mustering. Influenced by a miserable spirit 
of jealousy or favoritism, Congress had slighted 
this veteran of the late war, passing over him in 
the list of promotions. Resenting such injustice, 
he went home, but was now ready to unsheath his 
sword in the service of his State, though he refused 
to act under Continental officers. 

Ira Allen, the secretary and youngest member 
of the Vermont Council, strongly advocated the 
raising of a regiment for the defense of the State, 
while the majority could not see the way clear to 
raise more than two companies of sixty men each ; 
nor could they, in the unorganized condition of the 
new State, a third of whose inhabitants were in the 



BENNINGTON. 167 

confusion of an exodus, see how more than this 
meagre force could be maintained, and the day 
was spent in fruitless discussion of the vexed ques- 
tion. At last a member moved that Allen be 
requested to devise means for paying the bounties 
and wages of his proposed regiment, and to report 
at sunrise on the morrow. The astute young secre- 
tary was equal to the occasion, and when the Coun- 
cil met next morning, at an hour that finds modern 
legislators in their first sleep, he was ready with 
his plan of support. This was, that Commissioners 
of Sequestration should be appointed, with author- 
ity to seize the goods and chattels of all persons who 
had joined or should join the common enemy ; and 
that all property so seized should be sold at public 
vendue, and the proceeds be paid to the treasurer 
of the Council of Safety, for the purpose of paying 
the bounties and wages of a regiment forthwith to 
be raised for the defense of the State. " This was 
the first instance in America of seizing and selling 
the property of the enemies of American indepen- 
dence," says its originator, in his " History of Ver- 
mont." 1 These " turbulent sons of freedom," as 
Stark afterward termed them, were indeed fore- 
most in many aggressive measures. The Council 
at once adopted the plan, and appointed a Com- 
missioner of Sequestration. Samuel Herrick was 
appointed to the command of the regiment, his 

1 November 27, 1777, four months after the Vermont Coun- 
cil of Safety had adopted this measure, Congress recommended 
the same course to all the States, — Journals of Congress, vol. iii. 
p. 423. 



168 VERMONT. 

commission being signed on the 15th of July by 
Thomas Chittenden, president. The men were en- 
listed and their bounties paid within fifteen days. 
The colonels of the state militia were ordered to 
march half their regiments to Bennington, " without 
a moment's Loss of Time," and the fugitives, who 
since the invasion had been removing their fam- 
ilies to the southward, were exhorted to return and 
assist in the defense of the State. 1 

Stark was collecting his men at Charlestown, 
and sending them forward to Warner at Man- 
chester as rapidly as they could be supplied with 
kettles, rum, and bullets. There was great lack 
of all three of these essentials of a campaign, espe- 
cially of the last, for there was but one pair of 
bullet-moulds in the town, and there were frequent 
and urgent calls for lead. When the lead was 
forthcoming, the one pair of moulds was kept hot 
and busy. But at last, on the 7th of August, 
Stark was at the mountain-walled hamlet of Man- 
chester with 1,400 New Hampshire men and Green 
Mountain Boys, ready to follow wherever the brave 
old ranger should lead. 

Schuyler was anxious to concentrate all the avail- 
able troops in front of Burgoyne, to prevent his 
advance upon Albany, and urged Stark to join him 
with his mountaineers ; but, considering the terms 
on which he had engaged, Stark felt under no obli- 
gations to put himself under the orders of a Con- 
tinental officer, and had, moreover, opinions of his 

1 Hartford Caurant, August 17, 1777. 



BENNINGTON. 169 

own as to the most effective method of retarding 
Burgoyne's advance, which he thought might best 
be done by falling upon his rear when an oppor- 
tunity offered. Therefore he declined to comply 
with Schuyler's demands, though he assured him 
he would lay aside all personal resentment when 
it seemed opposed to the public good, and would 
join him when it was deemed a positive necessity. 
Schuyler's Dutch name, honored as it was by his 
own good deeds and those of his ancestors, had a 
smack of New York patroonism that was unpleas- 
ant to New England men, especially those of the 
Grants, and he was no favorite with any of them. 
They were jubilant when he was superseded in 
command of the Northern Department by the in- 
competent Gates, who accomplished nothing him- 
self, but managed to repose serenely on the laurels 
that others had gathered. Schuyler complained to 
Congress of Stark's refusal, and that body censured 
him and the New Hampshire government under 
which he was acting. 

General Lincoln was at Manchester, whither he 
had come on August 2d, to take command of the 
eastern militia. The force of the enemy, which for 
some time had remained at Castleton, menacing 
Manchester and all the country to the eastward, 
had marched to join Burgoyne on the Hudson ; and 
Stark moved forward to Bennington with the pur- 
pose, now, of joining Schuyler. He was accom- 
panied by Colonel Warner, who left his regiment 
at Manchester under command of Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel Safford, 



170 VERMONT. 

At the earnest request of the Council, already at 
Bennington, who apprehended an attack on that 
place, Stark encamped his brigade there and awaited 
the movements of the enemy. The Council was 
established at Captain Fay's x famous " Catamount 
Tavern," and during these fateful days sat in the 
low-browed room above whose wide fireplace was 
carved the words " Council Chamber." Here these 
faithful guardians of the young commonwealth 
consulted with Stark and Warner, and sent forth 
orders to colonels of militia and appeals to the 
valiant men of Berkshire. 

Provisions were becoming scant in the army of 
Burgoyne, and he determined to seize for his use 
the stores which the Americans had collected at 
Bennington. To accomplish this, he dispatched 
Colonel Baum, a German officer of tried valor, 
with 300 dismounted dragoons who had won rep- 
utation on European fields, and whom it was a 
part of the plan of operations to provide with 
horses. There were also a body of marksmen un- 
der Captain Frazer, Colonel Peters' s corps of Tories, 
some Canadian volunteers, and 100 Indians, — in 
all amounting to nearly 800 men, with two light 
field-pieces. Colonel Skene accompanied the Ger- 
man colonel, by request of Burgoyne, to give him 
the benefit of his knowledge of the country, and 
to use his influence in drawing the supposedly 
numerous Loyalists to the support of the British. 

1 This same Landlord Fay had five sons in Bennington battle, 
one of whom was killed. 



BENNINGTON. 171 

Lieutenant-Colonel Breyman was ready to support 
Baum, if occasion required, with a veteran force 
of Brunswickers, 620 strong, with two more field- 
pieces. 

On the 13th of August Baum set forth with his 
" mixed multitude," and on the same day reached 
Cambridge, sixteen miles from Bennington, and 
next day arrived at Sancoick, on a branch of the 
Walloomsac River. 

Here a party of Americans was posted in a mill, 
which they abandoned on his approach. The Bruns- 
wickers had had a sharp taste of the quality of 
Yankee valor at Hubbardton, yet Baum held his 
present adversaries in supreme contempt, and ex- 
pected no serious opposition from them. He wrote 
to Burgoyne, on the head of a barrel in the mill, 
that prisoners taken agreed there were fifteen to 
eighteen hundred men at Bennington, " but are 
supposed to leave on our approach." 

Being first apprised of the appearance of a party 
of Indians at Cambridge, General Stark sent Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Gregg with 200 men to oppose them, 
but he was presently informed that a more for- 
midable force was closely following the Indians 
and tending towards Bennington, and he sent at 
once to Manchester for Colonel Warner's regiment 
and all the militia of the adjacent country to come 
to his support. 

Early on the morning of the 14th he set forward 
with his brigade, accompanied by Colonels Warner, 
Williams, Herrick, and Brush, and after marching 



172 VERMONT. 

about five miles met Gregg retreating from San- 
eoick, closely pursued by the enemy. Stark formed 
his troops in line of battle, but Baum, perceiving 
the strength of the Americans, halted his force in 
a commanding position on a hill, and Stark fell 
back a mile to a farm, where he encamped. 

Baum's position was on the west side of the 
Walloomsac, a branch of the Hoosic, nearly every- 
where fordable. Most of his Germans were posted 
on a wooded hill north of the road, which here 
crossed the river. For the defense of the bridge, 
a breastwork was thrown up and one of the field- 
pieces placed in it, and two smaller breastworks on 
oppos'ite sides of the road were manned by Frazer's 
marksmen. The Canadians were posted in some 
log-huts standing on both sides of the stream, the 
Tories under Pfister on a hill east of the stream 
and south of the wood, while near their position 
was the other field-piece manned by German gren- 
adiers. A hill hid the hostile encampments from 
each other, though they were scarcely two miles 
apart. 

That night rain began falling, increasing to such 
a steady downpour as often marks the capricious 
weather of dogdays. Some of the Berkshire mili- 
tia had come up under Colonel Simonds, and among 
them was Parson Allen of Pittsfield, who com- 
plained to Stark that the Berkshire people had 
often been called out to no purpose, and would not 
turn out again if not allowed to fight now. Stark 
asked if he would have them fall to, while it was 



&ENNINGTON. 173 

dark as pitch and raining buckets. " Not just at 
this moment," the parson admitted. " Then," said 
the old warrior, " as soon as the Lord sends us 
sunshine, if I do not give you fighting enough, 
I '11 never ask you to come out again." All the 
next day the rain continued to pour down from the 
leaden sky. Baum employed the time in strength- 
ening his position, keeping his men busy with axe 
and spade, piling higher and extending his works, 
in the drenching downfall. At the same time, 
Stark with his officers and the Council of Safety 
was planning an attack. 

Next morning broke in splendor. Innumerable 
raindrops glittered on forest, grassdand, fields of 
corn, and ripening wheat ; clouds of rising vapor 
were glorified in the level sunbeams that turned the 
turbid reaches of the swollen Walloomsac to a belt 
of gold. So quiet and peaceful was the scene that 
it seemed to Glich, a German officer who described 
it, as if there could be no enemy there to oppose 
them. 

But the mountaineers were already astir. Three 
hundred under Nichols were making a wide circuit 
to the north of Baum's position, to attack his rear 
on the left ; while Herriek with his rangers and 
Brush's militia made a similar movement to the 
rear of his right, and Hobart and Stickney with 
300 of Stark's brigade were marching in the same 
direction. While these movements were in prog- 
ress, Baum was diverted by a threatened attack in 
front. 



174 VERMONT. 

At three in the afternoon Nichols had gained 
his desired position and began firing, quickly fol- 
lowed by Herrick, Stickney, and Hobart, while 
Stark assailed the Tory breastwork and the bridge 
with a portion of his brigade, the Berkshire and 
the Vermont militia. " Those redcoats are ours 
to-day, or Molly Stark 's a widow ! " he called to 
his mountaineers, and, following him, they dashed 
through the turbulent stream in pursuit of the 
scattering Tories and Canadians. The despised 
Yankee farmers, un-uniformed for the most part, 
wearing no badge but a cornhusk or a green twig 
in the hatband, fighting in their shirtsleeves, — for 
the sun poured down its scalding rays with intense 
fervor, — closed in on all sides and showered their 
well-aimed volleys upon the Brunswick veterans, 
who fought with intrepid but unavailing bravery. 

The Indians fled in affright, stealing away in 
single file, thankful to get oh with their own scalps 
and without plunder, for " the woods were full of 
Yankees," they said. Parson Allen, mounting a 
stump, exhorted the enemy to lay down their arms, 
but received only the spiteful response of mus- 
ketry. Clambering down from his perch, he ex- 
changed his Bible for a gun, and his gunpowder 
proved more effective than his exhortations. 

The fire was furious, and every musket and rifle 
shot, every thunderous roar of the rapidly served 
cannon, was repeated in multitudinous echoes by 
the hills. For two hours the roar of the conflict 
was, said Stark, " like a continuous clap of thun- 



BENNINGTON. 175 

der." He had been in the storm of fire that swept 
down Abercrombie's assaulting columns at Ticon- 
deroga, had fought at Bunker Hill, Trenton, and 
Princeton, yet he declared that this fight was the 
hottest he had ever seen. Warner, who was in the 
thickest of it with him, well knew every foot of the 
ground they were fighting over, and the value of 
his aid and advice was generously acknowledged 
by Stark. The cannoneers were shot down and 
the guns taken ; an ammunition wagon exploded 
and the assailing Yankees swarmed over the breast- 
works, charging with bayonetless guns upon the 
valiant Brims wickers, many of whom were killed, 
many taken prisoners, while a few escaped. 

The victory of the Americans was complete, and 
when the prisoners had been sent to Bennington 
town under a sufficient guard, the militia dispersed 
over the blood-stained field in quest of spoil. 

But they were soon brought together again by 
the alarm that another British force was coming" 
up, and was only two miles away. The rattle of 
their drums and the screech of their fifes could be 
heard shaking and piercing the sultry air. It was 
Breyman's force of German veterans. Early in 
the fight, Baum had sent an express to hasten 
Breyman's advance, which had been delayed by the 
violent rain-storm of the preceding day, and the 
consequent wretched condition of the roads, now 
continuous wallows of mire ; but they were close 
at hand, and the scattered militiamen were ill- 
prepared to oppose them. Fortunately, the rem- 



176 VERMONT. 

nant of Warner's regiment, from Manchester, just 
then came up, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Safford. 
There were only 140 of them, but they were a 
host in steadfast valor, and they took a position 
in front, forming a rallying point for the militia 
which now came hurrying in. The Americans fell 
back slowly before Breyman, who advanced up the 
road, firing his field-pieces with more noise than 
effect, till a body of militia of sufficient strength to 
make a stand was collected. Then the Germans 
were attacked in front and flank, the deadliest fire 
raining upon them from a wooded hill on their left. 
The engagement was hotly maintained till after 
sunset, when, having lost many men and his artil- 
lery horses, Breyman abandoned his cannon and 
beat a precipitate retreat. Stark pushed the pur- 
suit till it was impossible to aim a gun or distin- 
guish friend from foe in the gathering gloom, and 
then withdrew his men. In his official report he 
said, " With one hour more of daylight, we should 
have captured the whole body." As it was, Brey- 
man escaped with less than 100 men. 

The present fruits of the double victory were four 
brass field-pieces, 1,000 stand of arms, four ammu- 
nition wagons, 250 sabres, and more than 650 pris- 
oners. Among these were Baum and Pfister, both 
of whom received mortal wounds and died a few 
days later, and 207 were left dead on the field. 

The American loss was 30 killed and 40 wounded. 
Its more important results were the inspiriting 
effect upon the whole country, and the depressing 



BENNINGTON. Ill 

influence of the defeat upon the enemy. Wash- 
ington considered it decisive of the fate of Bur- 
goyne, who four days later wrote a gloomy account 
to the British minister of his situation resulting 
from this disaster. He had lost faith in the Tories, 
and said, "The great bulk of the country is un- 
doubtedly with the Congress. . . . Their measures 
are executed with a secrecy and dispatch that are 
not to be equaled. Wherever the King's forces 
point, militia to the amount of three or four thou- 
sand assemble in twenty-four hours. They bring 
with them their subsistence ; the alarm over, they 
return to their farms. The Hampshire Grants in 
particular, a country unpeopled and almost un- 
known iu the last war, now abounds in the most 
active and most rebellious race of the continent, 
and hangs like a gathering storm on my left." 

Congress hastened to revoke its censure of the 
insubordinate New Hampshire colonel, and made 
him a brigadier of the army. In Stark's report 
of the battle to Gates he says : " Too much honor 
cannot be given to the brave officers and soldiers 
for gallant behavior ; they fought through the 
midst of fire and smoke, mounted two breastworks 
that were well fortified and supported with can- 
non. I cannot particularize any officer, as they 
all behaved with the greatest spirit and bravery. 
Colonel Warner's superior skill in the action was 
of extraordinary service to me." He gave the 
** Honorable Council the honor of exerting them- 
selves in the most spirited manner in that most 



178 VERMONT. 

critical time," and he presented that body " a Hes- 
sian gun with bayonet, a Brass Berriled Drum, a 
Grenadier's Cap, and a Hessian Broad Sword," to 
be kept in the Council Chamber as a " Memorial 
in Commemoration of the Glorious action fought 
at Walloomsaik, August 16, 1777, in which case 
the exertions of said Council was found to be Ex- 
ceedingly Serviceable." 2 Two of the cannon taken 
from the Hessians stand in the vestibule of the 
capitol at Montpelier. 

1 Williams's History of Vermont ; Hiland Hall's History of 
Vermont ; Ira Allen's History of Vermont ; Account of Battle 
of Bennington, by Glieh ; Ibid., by Breyman ; Official Beports, 
Historical Soc. Coll. vol. i. j Centennial Exercises, 1877. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF VERMONT TROOPS. 

General Lincoln determined to make a dem- 
onstration in Burgoyne's rear, and moved for- 
ward from Manchester to Pawlet. On the 13th 
of September he dispatched Colonel Brown 1 with 
Herrick's regiment and some militia to cross the 
lake, and take the outposts of Ticonderoga and 
the works on Lake George. Colonel Warner was 
ordered to move toward Mount Independence with 
a detachment of Massachusetts militia, and Colonel 
Woodbridge, with another detachment, was sent 
against Skenesborough and Fort Anne. Captain 
Ebenezer Allen, with a party of rangers, was to take 
Mount Defiance, and then rejoin Brown and Her- 
rick to attack Ticonderoga together with Warner. 

Brown crossed the lake in the night, and pushed 
over the mountain to the foot of Lake George, 
arriving there the day before the contemplated 
attack. Here he captured an armed sloop, 200 
longboats, and several gunboats, with 293 soldiers 
and 100 American prisoners taken at Hubbard ton. 

1 The same officer who so unaccountably failed Ethan Allen at 
Montreal. He was one of the first to plan the capture of Ticon- 
deroga, an ardent patriot, and an officer of unquestioned bravery. 



180 VERMONT. 

These were provided with arms just captured, and 
they took their place in the ranks of their com- 
patriots. As the Americans moved forward in 
the darkness of the following evening, they were 
guided by three hoots of an owl, repeated at in- 
tervals from various points. This was the precon- 
certed signal of the sentinels, who so well simulated 
the mournful notes of the bird of night that the 
British sentries only wondered why so many were 
abroad, .and the noiselessly moving troops some- 
times thought the owls had conspired to lead them 
astray. Brown gained possession of Mount Hope 
and a block-house near the old French lines. 

Captain Allen and his men scaled the steeps of 
Mount Defiance till a cliff was reached which they 
could not climb. Allen ordered one of his men to 
stoop, and, stepping on his back, got to the top, 
where only eight men could stand without being 
discovered by the enemy. His men swarmed after 
him "like a stream of hornets to the charge," he 
wrote, and all 'the garrison fled but one man, who 
attempted to discharge a cannon at the storming- 
party. " Kill the gunner, damn him ! " shouted 
Allen, and the man fled, match in hand, with his 
comrades down the mountain road, and all were 
captured by Major Wait, posted at the foot to inter- 
cept them. Allen, who had never fired a cannon, 
now tried his hand and eye at this unaccustomed 
warfare, with good effect. He trained a piece of 
ordnance on a distant barrack and killed a man, 
then drove a ship from its moorings in the lake, and 
proclaimed himself commander of Mount Defiance. 



SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF TROOPS. 181 

Colonel Warner reached the neighborhood of 
Mount Independence early next morning. 1 Join- 
ing his force with Brown's, they demanded the 
surrender of Ticonderoga, but the comander, Gen- 
eral Powel, declared his determination to defend it 
to the last. The Americans opened fire upon the 
fort, and for four days ineffectually hammered the 
walls with cannon-shot. It is not easy to under- 
stand why the position they had gained on Mount 
Defiance did not prove as advantageous to them as 
it had been to the British. They withdrew to the 
foot of Lake George, and then, embarking on the 
captured gunboats, attacked Diamond Island, where 
a quantity of stores was guarded by two compa- 
nies of British regulars and several gunboats. The 
Americans were repulsed with some loss. They 
retreated to the east shore, where they burned 
their boats, and then crossed the mountains to 
Lake Champlain, and presently rejoined Lincoln 
at Pawlet. 

Until the regular organization of the government 
of the State in the following March, the Council 
of Safety, in whom rested all the authority of the 
State, attended faithfully to the varied necessities 
that arose during those troubled times. It was 
diligent in forwarding to the generals of the army 
all information, received through scouts and spies, 
of the condition and movements of the enemy, 

1 Ira Allen, who never misses the chance of a fling at his hrave 
kinsman, says, "He moved so extremely slow that he saved his 
own men, and hurt none of the enemy." 



182 VERMONT. 

and always, by word and deed, was ready to aid 
the common cause by every means in its power. 
When General Gates urged reinforcements, his 
letter was dispatched by expresses to all parts of 
the State where men oould be raised, and in re- 
sponse the recruits flocked in to swell the force 
which was encircling the doomed army of Bur- 
goyne. September 24, President Chittenden wrote 
Gates : " Several companies have passed this place 
this Morning on their March to your assistance," 
and desired to be informed of any wants the coun- 
cil might relieve. 

The British army was at Saratoga, ill-supplied 
with provisions, and unable to advance or retreat. 
Without hope of relief, on the 13th of October 
Burgoyne made overtures to General Gates which 
resulted on the 17th in the surrender of his entire 
army, reduced since its departure from Canada to 
less than 6,500 men, including more than 500 sick 
and wounded. 

When the news reached Ticonderoga, the troops 
stationed there at once prepared to retreat to 
Canada. The barracks and houses there and at 
Mount Independence were burned. All the boats 
not needed for the embarkation of the troops were 
sunk with their cargoes, and the cannon spiked or 
broken. It was gloomy autumnal weather when, 
in a few open boats, the garrison slunk back 
through the " Gate of the Country." The present 
plight of the poor remnant of Burgoyne's splendid 
army was a sorry contrast to the proud advance of 



SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF TROOPS. 183 

the gallant host that had passed these portals in 
the brightness of summer. No beat of drum nor 
strain of martial music now marked their passage, 
but in silent haste they pursued their way, in con- 
stant fear of attack whenever they approached the 
shores, that now were as sombre in their scant and 
faded leafage as the dreary November sky that 
overhung them. 

The doughty and aggressive Captain Ebenezer 
Allen harassed their rear whenever opportunity 
was given for striking a blow. With a little force 
of fifty men of Herrick's Rangers, he took forty- 
nine prisoners, more than a hundred horses, twelve 
yokes of oxen, three boats, and a considerable 
quantity of stores. 

Among the chattels taken by him were a slave 
woman, Dinah Mattis, and her child. Faithful to 
his convictions of the injustice of slavery, he set 
them free, having first obtained the consent of his 
Green Mountain Boys, among whom all captured 
property was to be divided. 

Herrick's regiment was dismissed with the thanks 
of the council for " good services to this and the 
United States," and warm acknowledgment oi its 
services from General Gates. Warner and his Con- 
tinental regiment were on the Hudson with Gates's 
army, and Vermont was again without an armed 
force. 

Ticonderoga, during the abortive planning of a 
Canadian invasion, was occupied for a time by a 
small garrison under Colonel Udney Hay. Other- 



184 VERMONT. 

wise the dismantled fortress remained for months 
in the desolation of ruin and desertion. 

No longer menaced by the presence of the enemy, 
the inhabitants of Vermont, who had fled on Bur- 
goyne's approach, returned to their homes, and 
made a late harvest of such crops as had not been 
destroyed, gathering, in almost winter weather, the 
scant remnants of their corn and hay. 

The people who had been driven from their 
homes were so destitute of grain, both for food and 
for seed, that the council prohibited, under heavy 
penalties, the transportation of any wheat, rye, 
Indian corn, flour, or meal out of the State without 
a permit, excepting Continental stores. 

Suffering privations that can now be scarcely un- 
derstood, these people struggled through the long 
and bitter winter, never losing hope nor courage, 
though the gaunt wolf of hunger was often at their 
doors, and the future was as vague as the storm- 
veiled border of the encircling forest. 

The Council of Safety was kept busily employed 
in providing for the defense of the frontier ; in pass- 
ing judgment upon Tories who were imprisoned, 
banished, or fined ; in issuing orders for the disposal 
of their property, and permits to persons under sus- 
picion to remain on their farms, or to visit certain 
points and return, — to some who had taken " the 
Oath of Fidellity," the liberty o'f the town, or a 
permit to pass to another place, they " to Behave 
as Becometh." "Comfort Canfield is permitted to 
go to Arlington to see his sick wife and return in 



SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF TROOPS. 185 

thirty hours ; " another is to go and " take care of 
his children and to return within six days ; " Henry 
Batterman, a German soldier, is allowed to go to 
Colonel Simonds till further orders ; Henry Bulls, 
who had joined the enemy in " Infamous Captain 
Samuel Adams's company," is permitted, on taking 
the oath of allegiance to the States of America, 
to pass to his farm in Manchester, there to remain, 
" he behaving as becometh a friend to his Coun- 
try." There are orders to procure sides of leather 
from " Marshes Fratts ; " * to transport " berrils of 
flour " to Colonel Herrick's regiment ; to the Com- 
missioners of Sequestration to seize the property of 
" Enimical Persons," and sell the same at vendue. 
Mary Reynolds is permitted to send for her " Gray 
horse and keep him till further orders." The wives 
of Captain Adams and Captain Sherwood are al- 
lowed to pass to their husbands at Ticonderoga, 
"necessary clothing and beds " allowed. Captain 
Nathan Smith is to " march to Pawlet on horse- 
back with the men under his command and there 
receive a horse Load of Flours to Each man and 
horse ; " and Captain Wood is ordered to take 
charge of the same, and " without one minute's loss 

o 7 

of time " proceed to Pawlet and thence to Colonel 
Warner. When he returns he is to take " es- 
pecial Care that the Horses and Bags be returned 
to their proper owners." It appears that two of 
the men did not return the horses, and were appre- 
hended for horse-stealing, and were sentenced by 

1 Vats. 



186 VERMONT. 

the council to be made a public example of, "to 
Deter people from such vicious practices," each to 
receive thirty-nine lashes on the naked back, at 
the liberty pole. This sentence was revoked and 
a line substituted upon their making restitution. 
Five teams are dispatched to bring off the plunder 
secured by Colonel Brown. Colonel Herrick re- 
ceives the thanks of the council for his spirited 
behavior in " his late noble enterprise," and in the 
same letter is informed there are thirty pairs of 
shoes ready for him at Shaftsbury. One order 
directs Benjamin Fassett to repair to Pownal, and 
bring from some of the Tories who had gone to the 
enemy, or otherwise proved themselves enemies of 
the country, " a Load of Saus for the use of the 
Hundred prisoners " at Bennington. He is " to 
leave sufficient for their families," and it appears 
that the Tories were generally treated with quite as 
much leniency as they deserved. Among the many 
curious orders is one issued in January, 1778, on 
application of General Stark to Captain Samuel 
Robinson, Overseer of Tories, " to detail ten effec- 
tive men under proper officers, to march in Two 
Distinct files from this place through the Green 
Mountains to Col. Wm. Williams Dwelling-house 
in Draper Alias Wilmington within this State who 
are to March & Tread the Snow in s d Road to suit- 
able width for a Sleigh or Sleighs with a Span of 
Horses on ,Each Sleigh, and order them to return 
Marching in the Same manner to this place with 
all convenient Speed." 1 

1 Governor and Council, by E. P. Walton. 



SUBSEQUENT OPERATIONS OF TROOPS. 187 

A midwinter invasion of Canada was contem- 
plated by Gates, to be commanded by General La- 
fayette. The Vermont Council of Safety took 
active measures to raise 300 men for this expedi- 
tion, or one to act in conjunction with it under Gen- 
eral Stark. A bounty or " encouragement " of ten 
dollars was offered to each man enlisting to serve 
till the last day of April following unless sooner 
discharged. Colonel Herri ck was to command the 
force, and the officers were to be from those who 
had served in his regiment of Rangers. The coun- 
cil also engaged to furnish twenty-five sleighs for 
the use of the expedition, and to afford every assist- 
ance in its power in " Collecting Hay, Provisions 
and Transporting Flour." But while the unrecog- 
nized State of Vermont responded so promptly to 
the call, the project fell through for lack of men. 
Not more than 1,200 could be collected, most of 
whom were poorly clad and as poorly armed. 

When the news of its abandonment was received 
by the council, orders were issued to stop enlist- 
ments ; yet those already engaged were requested 
to " Take a Short Tour for the defense of the fron- 
tiers ; " and almost the last act of the council was 
to instruct Captain Ebenezer Allen " to take post 
with such recruits at New Haven Fort, 1 to keep out 
proper Scouts to reconoitre the woods, to watch the 
movement of the enemy and Report them to this 
Council or officer Commanding the Troops in the 
Northern Department." 

1 The block-house built by Ethan Allen at the lower falls on 
Otter Creek in 1 773. 



188 VERMONT. 

On the 12th of March, 1778, while the Council 
of Safety was holding its last session, a brave little 
band of Green Mountain Boys was defending a 
block-house in Shelburne against the attack of a 
party of Indians commanded by a British captain 
named Larama. There were but sixteen of the 
Vermonters, including their captain, Thomas Saw- 
yer, and Moses Pierson, to protect whose possessions 
here they had marched ninety miles through the 
wintry wilderness, while their assailants numbered 
fifty-seven. The block-house was set on fire by the 
enemy, but Lieutenant Barnabas Barnum went out- 
side and extinguished the flames, though the dar- 
ing act cost him his life. One of the defenders, 
who was struck in the arm by a ball, was so exas- 
perated by the hurt that, when he had bound up 
the wound with a handkerchief and again taken his 
place at a loophole, he would at every discharge of 
his gun give it a spiteful push, as if to accelerate 
the speed of the ball, while he roared, " Take that 
for my arm ! " After a hot fight of two hours, the 
enemy retreated, were pursued, and two of them 
captured. Twelve were killed, among whom were 
the British captain and an Indian chief ; and three 
of the Vermonters fell in the gallant defense. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE UNIONS. 

Owing to the continual disturbance and partial 
depopulation of the State caused by the presence 
of the enemy, the election of state officers was 
deferred by a convention in December till the 
12th of March, 1778. It was held on that day, 
and the government took regular form under the 
Constitution. 

Thomas Chittenden, who had for some time been 
prominent in the political affairs of the forming 
commonwealth, was elected governor. He was born 
in Guilford, Conn., in 1730. In early manhood 
he began pioneer life in Salisbury, Conn., where 
he lived twenty-six years, prosperous, and a man of 
consequence in the town. Then the pioneer spirit, 
that lusty begetter of new states, again laid hold 
of him, and he purchased a tract in the wilderness 
lying upon the fertile borders of the Winooski, 
in the town of Williston. In 1774 he took his 
family to this wild region, but was scarcely estab- 
lished when the retreat of the American army from 
Canada left the northern settlers exposed to the 
enemy, and they retired to the southern part of 
the Grants. Living at times in Danby, Pownal, 



190 VERMONT. 

and Arlington, Chittenden remained till 1787, when 
he returned to Williston. He had not long been 
an inhabitant of the Grants when he naturally took 
his place among the leading men of the district. 
He was one of the committee that drafted the Ver- 
mont Declaration of Independence, and of the one 
that framed the government, and was president of 
that Council of Safety which exercised all the 
powers of the government until it was constitution- 
ally organized, when he was elected governor, in 
which office, with the exception of one year, he was 
continued for eighteen years. His educational ad- 
vantages had been slight, but he was possessed of 
a natural sagacity which enabled him to penetrate 
the character and designs of others, and to per- 
ceive, without the process of reasoning, the best 
course to pursue in any emergency. He was a 
masterful man, yet carried his points without ap- 
pearing to force them, and seemed to fall into the 
ways of others while in fact he led them imper- 
ceptibly into his own. His calm, strong features 
expressed the kindness of heart that his acts were 
full of, such as refusing to sell for cash the abun- 
dant yield of his acres, but reserving it for the 
relief of the people in a foreseen time of need. 
Among the people with whom he had cast his lot, 
his lack of polished manners was no discredit. 
Hearty friendship was a better key to their affec- 
tions, and his tall, athletic figure commended him 
to the favor of the stalwart Green Mountain Boys. 1 

1 They were so proud of their stature, it was sometimes re- 



THE UNIONS. 191 

Governor Chittenden was eminently fitted for the 
times upon which he fell, and for the place to which 
he was appointed, and he wisely guided the young 
State through its turbulent infancy. 

The first legislature met at Windsor in March, 
1778, when a new trouble arose. Sixteen towns 
east of Connecticut River applied for admission to 
the new State of Vermont, on the frivolous plea 
that as New Hampshire, under the original grant to 
John Mason, extended only sixty miles inland from 
the sea, and its extension to the westward of this 
line had been made by royal commissions to the 
governor of that province, the royal authority being 
now overthrown, the people of the region were at 
liberty to elect what jurisdiction they would be 
under ; but, as afterward became evident, the real 
object was to establish the seat of government on 
the Connecticut River. At first there was little 
disposition to accede to this petition, but it was 
also warmly urged by some of the Vermont river 
towns, that threatened in case of refusal to unite 
with the New Hampshire towns in establishing a 
new State. Whereupon the legislature submitted 
the subject to the consideration of the people, who 
should instruct their representatives how to act 
upon it at the adjourned session of the assembly to 
be held at Bennington in June. 

corded on their tombstones. The epitaph of Benjamin Carpenter, 
one of the founders of the State, sets forth that "He left this 
world and 146 persons of lineal posterity, March 29, 1804, aged 
78 yrs. 10 mos. 12 days, with a strong mind and full faith of a 
more glorious hereafter. Stature about six feet, weight 200. 
Death had no terror." 



192 VERMONT. 

A few days before this session, Ethan Allen ar- 
rived at Bennington, his once burly form gaunt 
and worn by the cruel captivity from which he had 
just been released, but his bold spirit as robust as 
ever. The people thronged into the little hamlet 
to greet their old leader, and, though powder was 
scarce and precious, the rusty old cannon that had 
been brought from Hoosic Fort years before to 
repel the rumored invasion of Governor Tryon, 
was roundly charged, and thundered forth a wel- 
coming salute of thirteen guns for the United 
States, and one for young Vermont. In response 
to a letter from Washington, commending Allen's 
unabated zeal in the cause of his country, Congress 
conferred upon him a brevet commission of colonel. 
But he appears to have thought his services more 
needed by his State than by the country, for he 
found the land speculators of New York as rapa- 
cious under the republican Governor Clinton as 
they were under the royal governors ; and, after 
his return, he took no active part in the military 
operations of the United States. He was made 
brigadier-general of the militia of Vermont, a po- 
sition that he held till 1780, when, being accused 
of traitorous correspondence with the enemy, he 
indignantly resigned it, at the same time declaring 
his willingness to render the State any service 
within his power, a promise he faithfully fulfilled 
during the few remaining years of his eventful 
life. 

In the time afforded by the adjournment of the 



THE UNIONS. 193 

assembly, the friends of the proposed union man- 
aged to secure a majority of the legislature, and 
when it met at Bennington thirty-seven of the 
forty-nine towns represented were found in favoj^ 
of the union. An act was passed authorizing the 
sixteen towns to elect members to the assembly, 
and it was resolved that other towns might be 
similarly admitted. 

New Hampshire protested to Governor Chitten- 
den against the union, and instructed her delegates 
in Congress to seek the aid of that body in oppos- 
ing it. At the same time Vermont sent Ethan 
Allen to Congress to learn its views concerning the 
union. He reported the proceeding was regarded 
with such disapprobation that, if Vermont did 
not at once recede, the whole power of Congress 
would be exerted to annihilate her, and establish 
the rights of New Hampshire. 

Thus Vermont became aware that she had not 
only incurred the enmity of the New Hampshire 
government, until now so friendly that it tacitly 
acknowledged the independence of the young 
State, but had also strengthened the unfavorable 
feeling of Congress toward her. If the wily poli- 
ticians of New York had intrigued to accomplish 
these ends, they could hardly have devised a more 
successful method. The action of the succeeding 
legislature was unfriendly to the union, and in 
February, 1779, it was finally dissolved. 

As all the Continental troops were withdrawn 
from Vermont, and as the State was unable of it- 



194 VERMONT. 

self to maintain a force sufficient to guard its ex- 
tended frontier, the frontier line was established at 
Pittsford, and Castleton, where Forts Warren and 
Vengeance were held by small garrisons. Fort 
Ranger at Rutland was more strongly garrisoned, 
and made the headquarters of the state forces, and 
the inhabitants to the northward on Otter Creek 
were directed to come within this frontier line. 
When a captain of militia was called upon to fur- 
nish a certain number of men for guarding the fron- 
tier or for other duty, it was provided by law that 
he should divide his company into as many classes 
as there were men required. Each class was 
obliged to furnish one man ; and if it failed to do 
so, the captain was empowered to hire one, and 
each member of the class was obliged to bear his 
proportion of the expense. This method met with 
general approval, bat in the southeast part of the 
State there were many malcontents, always un- 
friendly to the government of Vermont. They 
were in constant correspondence with Governor 
Clinton, who urged them to maintain a " firm and 
prudent resistance to the draughting of men, the 
raising of taxes, and the exercise of any acts of 
.government under the ideal Vermont State." He 
issued commissions for the formation of a regiment, 
in which about 500 men were enlisted. 

In response to a request from General James 
Clinton, commanding the Northern Department, 
the Board of War a ordered a levy of men " for 

1 The governor and council. 



THE UNIONS. 195 

service of the State and the United States in guard- 
ing the frontier." Writing to General Washington 
concerning this levy, Governor Chittenden calls 
his attention to the destitute condition of the fam- 
ilies of the soldiers. In consequence of the late 
encroachments of the enemy, they had been unable 
to harvest the crops already grown, or to sow the 
" Winter Grain on which they have ever had their 
Greatest dependence since the first settlement of 
this part of the Country. They are therefore prin- 
cipally reduced to an Indian Cake in Scant pro- 
portion to the number of their Families, & by the 
destruction of their Sheep by the Enemy, their 
loss of them otherwise as well as their flax, their 
backs & their bellies have become Co Sufferers. 
In this deplorable situation," he continues, "they 
remain firm and unshaken, and ready on the Short- 
est Notice to face their inveterate foe Undaunted ; " 
but considering their circumstances, he hopes they 
may not be kept in service during the summer. 

In compliance with the order of the Board of 
War, the captain of a company in Putney divided 
his men into classes, in one of which was comprised 
Captain James Clay and two others, all known to 
be active partisans of New York. They refused to 
furnish their man, or the sum required to pay the 
man obtained to represent them. Upon this the 
sergeant of the company, having the proper warrant, 
seized two cows belonging to these persons, and 
posted them for sale. On the day of sale, a hun- 
dred of the adherents of New York, under the lead 



196 VERMONT. 

of their colonel, rescued the cattle, and returned 
them to their owners. The colonel soon learned 
that news of the affair had gone to the council 
at Arlington, and apprehended that Ethan Allen 
and his Green Mountain Boys might be sent to 
enforce the authority of the State, and he wrote 
to Governor Clinton for advice and aid. The gov- 
ernor gave the one, and made promises of the 
other, but never fulfilled them. Indeed, it would 
have been very difficult to raise a military force 
for that purpose among the inhabitants of the New 
York border, who were more in sympathy with the 
people of Vermont than with their own aristo- 
cratic government. The men who refused to sub- 
mit to the rule of Vermont had not been called on 
by New York to render any military service, nor 
to pay for any. If they were exempted from 
service under Vermont, they would contribute no- 
thing to the common cause, and their exemption 
would encourage all who wished to escape these 
burdens to join the opponents of Vermont, thus 
weakening it and the whole country. Vermont 
acted promptly in the matter. Ethan Allen was 
ordered to raise 100 men in Bennington County, 
and march to the county of Cumberland, there to 
join his force with the militia of that county under 
Colonel Fletcher, and assist the sheriff in enforcing 
the law. The order was duly executed. Most of 
the leaders of the opposition to Vermont in the 
county, and the principal officers of the New York 
regiment, were arrested, taken to Westminster, 



THE UNIONS. 197 

where the court was in session, and tried as rioters. 
Most of them were fined, and upon payment of the 
fines, which were light, and satisfying the costs, 
were soon discharged. 

Comj)laint was, of course, made to Governor 
Clinton, and he in turned complained to Congress ; 
and while New York was pressing upon that body 
its grievances, and its claims to the Grants, New 
Hampshire presented a counter-claim to the same 
region. Congress appointed a committee of five 
to visit the district, to confer with the people and 
learn their reasons for refusing to submit to the 
claiming States, and to promote an amicable ad- 
justment of the dispute. Only two of the com- 
mittee visited Vermont, and though they conferred 
with Governor Chittenden, and exerted themselves 
to bring about a reconciliation, their report to Con- 
gress was not acted upon, as they did not consti- 
tute a quorum of the committee. 

Massachusetts now set up a claim to the south- 
ern portion of Vermont, founded on an ancient 
grant of the Plymouth Company. Congress urged 
the three contesting States to submit the matter to 
itself for adjustment, though Vermont, whose very 
life was at stake, was to have a hearing, but no 
voice in the settlement of the difficulty. Its unac- 
knowledged government was enjoined to make no 
more grants of unoccupied lands, and to exercise 
no authority over those inhabitants who did not 
recognize it, while it patiently and silently awaited 
such dismemberment of its territory as Congress 



198 VERMONT. 

should decree. New Hampshire and New York 
promptly passed acts submitting the matter to 
Congress, but Massachusetts failed to take such 
action. 

Vermont refused to submit to the jurisdiction of 
the three claiming States, and to an arbitrament 
that ignored her existence, but resolved to " Sup- 
port their right to independence at Congress and 
to all the world," and to make grants of her un- 
appropriated lands. 

By direction of the governor and council, two 
pamphlets, strongly setting forth the right of Ver- 
mont to independence, were prepared and sent to 
leading men of the country, to generals of the 
army, and members of Congress. One was Ethan 
Allen's "Vindication of the Opposition of the In- 
habitants of Vermont to the Government of New 
York, and their right to Form an Independent 
State." The other was " Vermont's Appeal to the 
Candid and Impartial World," by Stephen R. 
Bradley, in which it is vigorously stated that Ver- 
mont could not submit to a plan believed to be 
started by neighboring States ; that Congress had 
no right to meddle with the internal government of 
Vermont ; that the State existed independent of 
any of the thirteen United States, and was not 
accountable to them for liberty, the gift of God ; 
that it was not represented in Congress, and could 
not submit to resolutions passed without its con- 
sent or knowledge when all of value to it was at 
stake ; that it was and ever had been ready to 



THE UNIONS. 199 

share the burdens of the war, bat after four years 
of war with Great Britain, in which it had ex- 
pended so much blood and treasure, " it was not 
so lost to all sense and honor as to now give up 
everything worth fighting for, the right of making 
their own laws and choosing their own form of 
government, to the arbitrament and determination 
of any man or body of men under heaven." 

Ira Allen was sent to the legislatures of New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland to 
interest them in favor of Vermont. 

Though Congress in September, 1779, had re- 
solved to hear and determine the dispute in the 
following February, when the time arrived this 
business was postponed, and so on various pretexts 
it was for a long time deferred. In fact, Congress 
did not dare to take a decided step concerning it 
in any direction, fearing that by the one it might 
incur the enmity of the claiming States, that by 
the other it might force the warlike Green Moun- 
tain Boys into armed opposition to its authority. 
To lose the support of the first, or to be obliged 
to spend the strength that could ill be spared to 
subdue the latter, would alike be ruinous to the 
common cause. 

There is reason to believe that about this time a 
plot was brewing by New York and New Hamp- 
shire to divide the bone of contention when Con- 
gress should decide in favor of the first, as was 
confidently expected it would. The line of the 
Green Mountains was to be the boundary between 



200 VERMONT. 

these States ; but the plan fell through in the New- 
York Assembly, where Mr. Townshend opposed it 
in behalf of those adherents of New York living 
east of the proposed line, who would thereby be 
placed beyond the limits of their chosen govern- 
ment. 

On the 2d of June Congress resolved that the 
acts of " the people of the Grants were highly un- 
warrantable, and subversive of the peace and wel- 
fare of the United States, and that they be strictly 
required to forbear from any acts of authority over 
those of the people who professed allegiance to 
other States. 

In reply to these resolutions, Vermont declared 
that they were subversive of her rights, and incom- 
patible with the principles on which Congress 
grounded the right of the United States to inde- 
pendence, and tended to endanger the liberties of 
America; that Vermont as an independent State 
denied the authority of Congress to judge of her 
jurisdiction, and boldly declared that, as she was re- 
fused a place among the United States, she was at 
liberty, if necessitated, to offer or accept terms of 
a cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, with 
whom she had no motive to continue hostilities 
and maintain an important frontier for the benefit 
of the United States, if she were not to be one 
of them, but only to be divided between her covet- 
ous neighbors. Thus was foreshadowed the policy 
which Vermont was soon forced to adopt for her 
own preservation. The declaration closed with 



THE UNIONS. 201 

saying that, " from a principle of virtue, and a 
close attachment, to the cause of liberty, she was 
induced once more to offer union with the United 
States of America." 

In September some attempt was made in Con- 
gress to decide the contest. New Hampshire and 
New York presented their claims, denying the 
right of Vei mont to independence. Ira Allen and 
Stephen R. Bradley were present as agents of 
Vermont, but were not treated by Congress as rep- 
resentatives of a State, or of a people invested with 
legislative authority. They were permitted to at- 
tend Congress on the hearing of the question, and 
protested against the manner of investigation which 
gave Vermont no hearing as a State. They de- 
clared her readiness to submit this dispute to the 
legislatures of one or more disinterested States, but 
protested Congress had no right to determine it by 
virtue of authority derived from the acts of one or 
more States who were but one party in the contro- 
versy. Congress heard the evidence of both New 
York and New Hampshire, and again postponed 
consideration of the troublesome question. 

But the action of Congress did not discourage 
or intimidate the young commonwealth. She now 
assumed as aggressive an attitude as her neighbors 
had borne towards her. Reaching to the eastward, 
she again drew to herself that portion of New 
Hampshire whose people still desired the union 
which Vermont on the disapproval of Congress had 
dissolved. Then she stretched forth a welcoming 



202 VERMONT. 

hand to the people of that part of New York lying 
east of the Hudson, who, left defenseless by their 
own government, desired the better protection af- 
forded by that of Vermont. This bold grasp on 
the territory of New Hampshire and New York 
enlarged her own to twice the extent Vermont had 
originally claimed, and correspondingly increased 
her importance. 

Furthermore, with supreme disregard of the in- 
junctions of Congress, Vermont was strengthening 
her position by the disposal of her unappropriated 
lands to the citizens of other States, who thus be- 
came interested in the establishment of her inde- 
pendence. 

Her importance was also augmented by the 
negotiations which she was now known to be con- 
ducting with General Haldimand, lieutenant-gov- 
ernor of the Province of Quebec. Although the 
object of these secret negotiations was not known 
to any but the parties engaged in them, Congress 
and the country were greatly alarmed by fears of 
the possible result. A succinct account of this 
correspondence is given in the following chapter. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. , 

The English government having determined to 
attempt making terms with the Americans, com- 
missioners were appointed for that purpose, and 
arrived in America in June, 1778. They ad- 
dressed a letter to the president of Congress, in- 
closing their commission from the crown. Their 
propositions were objected to by Congress, on the 
ground that they were founded on dependence, 
which was utterly inadmissible. Congress was in- 
clined to peace, but it could only be treated for 
upon an acknowledgment of the independence of 
the States, or the withdrawal of the king's fleets 
and armies. 

The commissioners were empowered to treat 
with such bodies politic or corporate, assemblies of 
men, person or persons, as they should think meet 
and sufficient for the purpose of considering the 
grievances supposed to exist in the government of 
any of the colonies respectively ; to order and pro- 
claim a cessation of hostilities on the part of the 
king's forces, as they should think fit ; and also to 
appoint governors of provinces. These powers 
were to be transferred to Sir Henry Clinton in 



204 VERMONT. 

case Sir William Howe, one of the commissioners, 
should be disabled from exercising them. This 
did occur, and Sir Henry Clinton acted as a peace 
commissioner for a time beyond the limitation of 
the first commission, which was June, 1779. 

Having failed with Congress, the commissioners 
appealed to the public in a manifesto offering to 
the colonies at large or separately a general or 
separate peace, with the revival of their ancient 
governments, secured against any future infringe- 
ment, and protected forever from taxation by Great 
Britain. 

The geographical situation of Vermont, bor- 
dering on the great thoroughfare from Canada 
southward, her controversy with the neighboring 
colonies, and the unfriendly attitude of Congress 
toward her, especially invited the overtures of the 
British agents. 

In March, 1779, Lord George Germaine, Sec- 
retary of Colonial Affairs, wrote to General Hal- 
dimand : " The minister says, the separation of 
the Inhabitants of the country they style Vermont 
from the Provinces in which it was formerly in- 
cluded is a Circumstance from which much advan- 
tage might be derived, and sees no objection to 
giving them reason to expect, the King will erect 
their country into a Province." 

The first overture was made, under the direction 
of Sir Henry Clinton, by Colonel Beverly Robin- 
son, afterward engaged in the plot with Arnold. 
In March, 1780, he wrote to Ethan Allen, to whom 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 205 

the letter was delivered in July in the streets 
of Arlington by a British soldier disguised as a 
Yankee farmer. Robinson began by saying that 
he had been informed that Allen and most of the 
inhabitants of Vermont were opposed to the wild 
and chimerical schemes of the Americans in at- 
tempting to separate the continent from Great 
Britain, and that they would willingly assist in 
uniting America again to the mother country. 
He invited Allen to communicate freely whatever 
proposals he wished to make, and thought that 
upon his taking an active part, and embodying 
the inhabitants of Vermont in favor of the crown, 
they might obtain a separate government under 
the king, and the men be formed into regiments 
under such officers as Allen should recommend. 

Allen at once laid the letter before Governor 
Chittenden and a few of the leading men, who all 
agreed that it was best to return no answer. 

In September following, Governor Chittenden 
wrote to General Haldimand asking a cartel for the 
exchange of some prisoners who had been captured 
in the spring by scouting parties from Canada. 
In October a large British force came up the lake 
to Crown Point, and the commander, Major Carle- 
ton, brought an answer to Chittenden's letter, and 
wrote to Ethan Allen, commanding the Vermont 
troops, acquainting him that he had appointed 
Captain Sherwood to treat with him and Governor 
Chittenden on the subject of an exchange ; also that 
no hostilities should be committed by the British 



206 VERMONT. 

on posts or scouts within the boundaries of Ver- 
mont during the negotiations, while Allen would 
be expected to observe the same, " and recall his 
scouts to prevent the appearance of not adhering 
to the above." 

Allen asked that the cessation of hostilities 
might be extended to the northern posts and fron- 
tiers of New York, to which, after some demur, 
Carleton finally agreed. The Vermont militia re- 
turned to their homes, much to the surprise of the 
New York militia serving on their borders, and the 
British retired to winter quarters in Canada with- 
out making any hostile demonstration against Ver- 
mont. 

Ira Allen and Joseph Fay were appointed on the 
part of Vermont to confer with the British com- 
missioners, Captain Sherwood and Dr. Smyth, both 
Tories, on the subject of a cartel, and all proceeded 
together from Crown Point toward Canada. An 
early winter was coming on ; and as they made 
their way down the lake, its waters were steaming 
like a cauldron, and lofty columns of vapor swept 
past the boats like an army of gigantic spectres. 
The passage of the boats was soon opposed by a 
more material obstacle in the rapidly forming ice, 
and as the men were breaking the way through this, 
Ira Allen says, " much political conversation and 
exhibit of papers took place." After some days 
of battling with the ice, the Vermont commission- 
ers abandoned the struggle and went home, prom- 
ising that they or other commissioners should visit 
Canada as soon as possible. 



THE RALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 207 

This Dr. Jonas Fay undertook in the winter, 
and went as far as Split Rock, where he found the 
ice still an enemy, now refusing to bear him fur- 
ther, and he was obliged to abandon the journey. 

On the 23d of February, 1781, Ethan Allen re- 
ceived a second letter from Beverly Robinson, in- 
closing a copy of the first, which he feared had 
miscarried. He now confidently assured Allen 
that the terms mentioned in the first letter might 
be obtained, provided he and the people of Ver- 
mont took an active part with Great Britain. 
Allen returned no answer, but transmitted both 
letters, with one from himself, to Congress. His 
letter closed with bold and characteristic words : 
" I am confident that Congress will not dispute 
my sincere attachment to the cause of my coun- 
try, though, I do not hesitate to say, I am fully 
grounded in opinion that Vermont has an indubi- 
table right to agree on terms of cessation of hos- 
tilities with Great Britain, provided the United 
States persist in rejecting her application for a 
union with them ; for Vermont, of all people, would 
be most miserable were she obliged to defend the 
independence of the United claiming States, and 
they at the same time at full liberty to overturn 
and ruin the independence of Vermont. I am 
persuaded, when Congress considers the circum- 
stances of this State, they will be more surprised 
that I have transmitted them the inclosed letters 
than that I have kept them in custody so long, for 
1 am as resolutely determined to defend the inde- 



208 VERMONT. 

pendence of Vermont as Congress are that of tlie 
United States, and rather than fail will retire with 
hardy Green Mountain Boys into the desolate cav- 
erns of the mountains, and wage war with human 
nature at large." 

On the 1st of May, which being his birthday 
he deemed propitious, Ira Allen, as sole commis- 
sioner, set forth for Isle aux Noix in considera- 
ble state, being attended by a guard consisting of 
a lieutenant, two sergeants, and sixteen privates. 
Afterward, when the British were again in force 
upon the lake, General Haldimand objected to the 
agents of Yermont being attended by so large a 
retinue, and forbade more than five persons being 
received. Allen was treated with great politeness 
by the commander, Major Dundas, who was em- 
powered to act only in the exchange of prisoners. 
On the second day, as Sherwood and Allen were 
walking in the gray of the soft spring morning 
beneath the wide ramage of the nut-trees that gave 
the island its name, the Tory captain informed 
the handsome young colonel that he and Dr. 
Smyth were to settle the armistice with him, and 
concert measures to establish Vermont as a royal 
colony. For his better opportunities of conduct- 
ing them, the negotiations with Vermont had been 
committed to General Haldimand's management, 
and he had given his instructions to Sherwood 
and Smyth on the 20th of the preceding Decem- 
ber. These instructions authorized "positive as- 
surances that their country will be erected into a 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 209 

separate province, independent and unconnected 
with every government in America, and will be en- 
titled to every prerogative and immunity which is 
promised to other provinces in the proclamation of 
the King's commissioners." It was proposed to 
raise two Vermont battalions of ten companies 
each, of which Haldimand should be colonel, but 
all other officers should be Vermonters, and en- 
titled to half pay. The instructions still further 
state, " I am so much convinced of the present in- 
fatuation of these people, ... I agree that this 
negotiation should cease, and any step that leads to 
it be forgotten, provided the Congress shall grant 
the State of Vermont a seat in their assembly, and 
acknowledge its independency." Sherwood said 
the reception of the British overtures during the 
ice-bound voyage on the lake was such that they 
had great hope of success. This hope it was the 
policy of Vermont to encourage, in order to secure 
the safety of the people, since all the Continental 
troops had been ordered out of the State, the 
New York troops withdrawn from Skenesborough, 
and Vermont had no adequate force wherewith to 
oppose the British force of 7,000 men in Canada. 
Thus abandoned, as it appeared to them designedly, 
that they might be forced into submission to New 
York, the leaders saw no hope of safety for the 
State but in an adroit management, to their own 
advantage, of these attempts of the British. 

In his interviews with the commissioners, Allen 
was non-commital, and " very cautious and intri- 



210 VERMONT. 

cate," as they reported. He would make no pro- 
posals, nor talk of anything beyond the neutrality 
of Vermont during the war, at the close of which 
it must, as a separate government, be subject to the 
ruling power, if that power would give the State a 
free charter. 

A cartel for the exchange of prisoners was ar- 
ranged, and a verbal agreement made that hos- 
tilities should cease between the British forces and 
those of Vermont until after the session of the 
legislature of the State, and longer " if prospects 
were satisfactory to the commander-in-chief." Af- 
ter seventeen days the present negotiations ended, 
and, with expressions of his satisfaction with the 
treatment he had received, Allen departed with 
his attendants, voyaging homeward past green for- 
ested shores, above which, far to the eastward, the 
Crouching Lion, hoary with yet unmelted snows, 
reared his majestic front, as if guarding the beloved 
land of the Green Mountain Boys. 

In compliance with a request of the assembly, 
Ira Allen appeared before them in June, and gave 
a report of his mission to Canada to arrange a car- 
tel, in which he had happily succeeded. He also 
stated that he had " discovered among the British 
officers a fervent wish for peace," but disclosed 
nothing concerning the overtures made to him. 1 
These were then known to but ten persons, and 

1 A British spy who was in Bennington at the time gave a re- 
port of the proceedings rather unfavorable to the success of the 
British cause. 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 211 

were never disclosed to but few. That all might 
share alike the dangers and responsibilities of these 
negotiations, a paper giving approval of Colonel 
Ira Allen's policy by feigning or endeavoring to 
make them believe that the State of Vermont had 
a desire to negotiate a treaty of peace with Great 
Britain, and stating it " to be a necessary political 
manoeuvre to save the frontiers of this State," was 
signed by Jonas Fay, Samuel Safford, Samuel 
Robinson, Joseph Fay, Thomas Chittenden, Moses 
Robinson, Timothy Brownson, and John Fassett, 
eight of the most ardent patriots of the State, who 
then and ever afterwards enjoyed the full confi- 
dence of the people. In the exposed and danger- 
ous condition of the State, they deemed it justifi- 
able to resort to stratagem, always practiced in war 
to ward off the blows of an enemy. 

In July, Major Fay was sent to the enemy on 
Lake Champlain, to complete the exchange of pris- 
oners, and was received on board the Royal George. 
The British found him as unprepared as Colonel 
Allen had been to close with the proffered terms, 
but wishing to continue the negotiations till Novem- 
ber. The British agents suspected that the Ver- 
monters were procrastinating to save themselves 
from an invasion by king or Congress. " Upon the 
whole," they said, " it appears to us that interest, 
not loyalty, induces the leading men of Vermont to 
unite with Canada. One fifth of the people wish it 
from the same motive, near another fifth from prin- 
ciples of loyalty, and the remainder are mad rebels," 



212 VERMONT. 

Yet the hope of drawing such a rebellious people 
to the king's cause was not abandoned, and the 
correspondence continued. 

Emissaries from Canada came now and then to 
Ethan Allen and his brother Ira. Unmolested if not 
undiscovered, they made their stealthy journeys be- 
tween Canada and the Vermont settlements. Glid- 
ing in light canoes along the lake in the shadow of 
cedar-clad shores, up the solitude of wooded streams 
where only the silent flight of the disturbed heron 
heralded their approach, and stealing along the by- 
ways of almost forgotten Indian trails, they found 
at last safe hiding during their brief tarries, deliv- 
ered in the dusk their precious packets, received oth- 
ers, and then returned by the ways they had come. 

In July, Ira Allen wrote to General Haldimand 
that he and two others had been appointed agents 
to Congress, with full powers to make and receive 
proposals for articles of union between the United 
States and Vermont. " It is expected that the said 
agents will make proposals to Congress that will 
not be accepted, and show that Congress means 
nothing more than to keep this State in suspense 
till the end of the war, and then divide the territory 
among the claiming States." Yet when, soon after- 
ward, Allen was acting as agent to Congress, he so 
far yielded the claim of Vermont to her east and 
west unions that the boundaries proposed by him 
through a member from Connecticut were at once 
accepted by Congress, though afterward rejected by 
Vermont on the ground that the proposals had not 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 213 

been officially made by her agents. This shows 
that his real preferences were not such as he would 
lead Haldimand to believe. 

A letter from Lord George Germaine to Sir 
Henry Clinton, which had been intercepted by the 
French and taken to Paris, was received by Con- 
gress, to whom it had been sent by Dr. Franklin. 
" The return of the people of Vermont to their al- 
legiance," it said, " is an event of the utmost im- 
portance to the king's affairs, and at this time, if 
the French and Washington really meditate an ir- 
ruption into Canada, may be considered as oppos- 
ing an insurmountable bar to the attempt. Gen- 
eral Haldimand, who has the same instructions with 
you to draw over those people and give them sup- 
port, will, I doubt not, push up a body of troops 
to act in conjunction with them to secure all the 
avenues through their country to Canada." This 
letter had an immediate effect upon the action of 
Congress, for a committee was at once appointed 
by that body to confer with persons to be appointed 
by the people of the Grants, who should have full 
power to agree upon and ratify terms and articles 
of union and confederation with the United States 
of America. 

Ira Allen, who with Jonas Fay and Bezaleel 
Woodward had in June been appointed agents to 
Congress, and were now on their way to Philadel- 
phia, says : " This information had greater influence 
on the wisdom and virtue of Congress than all the 
exertions of Vermont in taking Ticonderoga, Crown 



214 VERMONT. 

Point, and the two divisions from General Bur- 
goyne's army, or their petition to be admitted as a 
State in the general confederation, and offers to 
pay their proportion of the expenses of the war." 

In September, 1781, there were further negotia- 
tions at Skenesborough between the British com- 
missioners and Colonel Allen and Major Joseph 
Fay, acting for Vermont. The plan of government 
for Vermont was considered, and it was agreed it 
should be essentially the same as that established 
by her Constitution, excepting the governor should 
be appointed by the king in council. 

The commissioners proposed to make prisoners 
of several persons in Vermont who were most op- 
posed to the negotiations, and insisted that Ver- 
mont should declare itself a British colony, and 
proposed an expedition against Albany. By unit- 
ing with the British troops, they said, the Ver- 
monters would be able to defend themselves against 
the other States, and declared that something effec- 
tual must be determined on before they parted, or 
the armistice must cease, for the commander-in- 
chief would not lose this campaign by inactivity. 

The agents of Vermont would not consent to the 
first proposal, which w r ould make active enemies 
of those who should be conciliated. Against the 
others they set forth the extent of the frontier of 
Vermont, which it would be impossible for the 
king's troops to defend in winter, when, unsup- 
ported by them, their friends in Vermont would 
be overpowered ; that there were many zealous 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 215 

Whigs among the inhabitants who might better 
be conciliated than openly opposed ; that, by con- 
tinuing the truce, other unions than those already 
existing might be established ; and that, by the 
pursuit of the present policy, better results might 
be attained by the British than by those pro- 
posed by the commissioners. The commissioners 
took down in writing the heads of these objections, 
and then suggested an instruction, which they 
could not deviate from without putting an end 
to the armistice, which was, that General Haldi- 
mand should, in pursuance of full powers vested in 
him by his Majesty in council, issue a proclamation 
offering to confirm Vermont as a colony under the 
crown ; that an army should come up the lake in 
October with said proclamations and distribute them 
while the legislature was in session, which must 
accept them, and with the British take measures 
for common defense. The agents strengthened 
their previous arguments by saying that, consider- 
ing the climate and bad roads, and the absence of 
all necessary preparations, the season was too far 
advanced for such operations ; that one winter 
would have great effect in changing the minds of 
the people for a new order of things. But if, in 
spite of these reasons, the general should still in- 
sist on such a proclamation, they trusted that he 
would learn the temper of the people before issuing 
it. With this understanding they consented to 
the proclamation rather than break the armistice. 
Small chance was there of the acceptance of such 



216 ' VERMONT. 

a proclamation by a legislature chosen from a peo- 
ple three fifths of whom were known to be " mad 
rebels," to cure whose madness it does not appear 
that any attempt had been made by the men who 
on the part of Vermont were conducting these 
negotiations. The conference now ended, and the 
agents departed, leaving the British commissioners 
very hopeful of success. 

In October, while the legislature was in session 
at Charlestown, in the eastern union, General St. 
Leger came up the lake to Ticonderoga with a force 
so large that the narrow channel was black with 
the swarming armament. About the 25th a small 
scouting party, sent out for appearance' sake by the 
commander of the Vermont troops, General Enos, 1 
who was in the secret of the negotiations, was fired 
upon while watching the movements of the British, 
and the leader, Sergeant Tupper, was killed. His 
body was buried with military honors, and his 
clothes, with an open letter expressing regret for his 
death, were sent by St. Leger to General Enos at 
Castleton. These being publicly delivered, con- 
siderable stir was caused among the troops, and no 
less in Charlestown when the news arrived there by 
a messenger bearing: letters from General Enos to 
Governor Chittenden. These letters related as well 
to the private negotiations with the British as to 
public affairs ; and while the governor, sitting with 
others in a public room, was acquainting himself 

1 When Ethan Allen resigned, General Enos was appointed in 
his place. 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 217 

with their contents, Major Reynolds, commanding 
New Hampshire troops there, came in and demanded 
of Colonel Allen why a British general should he 
sorry for the death of an enemy. Allen answered 
that he did not know, unless that good men were 
sorry when good men were killed. Angry words 
ensued ; and while the spectators were agog to hear 
the quarrel, copies of the letters were made, exclud- 
ing all that pertained to the negotiations. These 
were publicly read in place of the original letters, 
and the people were quieted. Ira Allen wrote to 
the commissioners, now with General St. Leger, 
reporting rumors of Cornwallis's surrender, which, 
whether true or not, had the same effect on the 
people, and advised that in the present situation the 
proclamation would best be withheld for a while. 
He also sent a list of the members of the new legis- 
lature, representing that the changes were favorable 
to the success of the negotiations. The letter was 
delivered at Ticoncleroga about ten o'clock in the 
morning, and an hour afterward an express arrived 
from the south with tidings of the surrender of 
Cornwallis. 

Before evening, St. Leger began the embarka- 
tion of his stores and troops, and, with a favoring 
wind, set forth toward Canada. The campaign had 
ended with barren results to the English, and no 
injury to Vermont but the death of poor Sergeant 
Tupper, perhaps slain only to " try the temper of 
the people." The commissioners flattered them- 
selves that this affair had resulted very favorably 
to them. 



218 VERMONT. 

There is no record of any subsequent interview 
of the agents of Vermont and the British commis- 
sioners, though there were frequent communications 
passing between them during the next year. One 
of the commissioners wrote to Ira Allen in Feb- 
ruary, 1782, expressing his anxiety to know what 
effect the surrender of Cornwallis had made upon 
the people of Vermont. He reminded Allen that 
it was well to consider the many chances and vicis- 
situdes of war ; that, however brilliant the last cam- 
paign might appear, the next might wear a very 
different aspect ; and of the probability of the ruin 
of Vermont by her " haughty neighbors, elated by 
what they call a signal victory ; " and hoped that 
Allen might see, as he did, that it was more than 
ever the interest of Vermont to unite with those 
who would make her a free and happy government. 

In April General Haldimand wrote to Sir Henry 
Clinton that " coercion alone must now decide the 
part Vermont will take ; " that it had made conces- 
sions to Congress by relinquishing its claims to the 
east and west unions, the confirmation of which 
had been promised by him. 

In June Ethan Allen wrote to Haldimand that 
" the last refusal of Congress to admit the State into 
the union has done more to awaken common people 
to a sense of their interest and resentment of their 
conduct than all which they had done before. By 
their own account, they declare that Vermont does 
not and shall not belong to their confederacy ; the 
consequence is, that they may fight their own bat- 



THE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 219 

ties. It is liberty which they are after, but they 
will not extend it to Vermont ; therefore Vermont 
does not belong to the confederacy or the contro- 
versy, but are a neutral republic." He offers to 
meet General Haldimand on any part of Lake 
Champlain, and closes in bitterness of spirit : 
" There is a majority in Congress, and a number 
of the principal officers of the Continental army 
continually planning against me. I shall do every- 
thing in my power to render this State a British 
province." 

Ira Allen was again sent to Canada early in 
July with a request from Governor Chittenden for 
the release of two Vermont officers then prisoners 
in Canada, a request which was granted. About 
this time a letter attributed to Ira Allen, though it 
was a wide departure from his cautious practice of 
making only verbal communications on such deli- 
cate affairs, was written from Quebec to General 
Haldimand. It begins with the request that a sup- 
posed charter to Philip Skene, for a government 
comprehending Vermonters with the tract of country 
called the " Western Uni©n," might be produced, as 
the limits of Vermont would thereby be established 
according to an act of Congress confirming all royal 
charters and government lines established before 
the Declaration of Independence. The writer rep- 
resents that the people of the Western Union " are 
mostly in favor of government, and would be of 
great use in bringing about the wished-for revolu- 
tion." If General Haldimand advised it, the Ver- 



220 VERMONT. 

mont leaders would endeavor to raise a regiment or 
two from the other provinces, to consist of the most 
loyal or at least moderate men, with no officers but 
known and tried friends of government^ to be sta- 
tioned in Vermont under pretense of protecting the 
frontiers; such regiments to be supplied by the 
king, and always ready to act in or out of Vermont 
as ordered. " Thus far," he says, " I have not de- 
viated from the principles of my employers, the 
ruling men of Vermont." But now, unauthorized, 
he proposes an immediate recognition of Vermont 
under government ; that the principal gentlemen 
of Vermont promised to abide by any agreement he 
should enter into, provided it should be kept a pro- 
found secret till the British government could pro- 
tect and assist them ; and that they should not be 
obliged to go out of Vermont to make war with the 
other States ; but if other colonies should invade 
Canada, they would oppose them as much as pos- 
sible, but could not consistently go to Canada for 
its defense and leave their own State exposed to 
ruin : and also promised never to take arms again in 
opposition to British government, or assist Congress 
on any pretense whatever. In conclusion, the writer 
intimates that some of the king's money will be 
necessary to carry out these plans. There is only 
circumstantial evidence that Ira Allen was the au- 
thor of this letter ; although it is probable that he 
was, yet it contains contradictions hardly consistent 
with his usual shrewdness. Later in the same month 
General Haldimand wrote to Sir Guy Carleton : " I 



TEE HALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 221 

have brought it [the negotiation] to a very em- 
barrassing crisis with regard to myself, having urged 
the people to the declaration in favor of govern- 
ment by a long series of persuasion, and the stron- 
gest assurances of support and reward. Unin- 
formed as I am of the intentions of administration, 
except in general terms that they are pacific, I 
can no longer act with Vermont upon any certain 
grounds until I receive instructions for that purpose. 
In the mean time I shall amuse the messenger, who 
is very pressing for answers to his proposals, in 
the best way I can." In August he writes to Gov- 
ernor Chittenden : " You may rest assured that I 
shall give such orders as will effectually prevent 
hostilities of any kind being exercised in the dis- 
trict of Vermont until a breach on your part, or 
some general event, may make the contrary my 
duty." 

After the signing of the preliminary articles 
of peace between Great Britain and the United 
States, but before Washington had proclaimed the 
cessation of hostilities, or the news of the peace, 
though expected, had reached Canada, General 
Haldimand dispatched his last letter to Vermont. 
"While," says this letter, "his Excellency sincerely 
regrets the happy moment which, it is much to be 
feared, cannot be recalled, of restoring to you the 
blessings of the British government, and views 
with concern the fatal consequences approaching 
which he had so long and so frequently predicted 
from your procrastination, he derives some satis- 



222 VERMONT. 

faction from a consciousness of not having omitted 
a circumstance which could tend to your persua- 
sion and adoption of his desired purpose. If the 
report now prevailing has any foundation, a very 
short time will determine the fate of Vermont. 
Should anything favorable present, you may still 
depend on his Excellency's utmost endeavor for 
your salvation." 

This closed the negotiations which had been con- 
tinued for three years between the Vermont leaders 
and the British in Canada, and which, during that 
period, had saved the State from invasion on the 
one hand and disruption on the other. While it 
may be conceded that in the conduct of this policy 
the Vermonters did not exhibit the most exalted 
devotion to the faithless Congress, 1 though in it 
they did indeed serve it well, it must also be con- 
ceded that it was the only course by which they 
could preserve the autonomy of their State. This, 
antedating by eight years that of any other colony, 
could but be more precious to them than mere ex- 
istence as a part or parts of other colonies, one of 
whom, and the principal claimant of their territory, 
had been, and still continued to be, more tyrannical 
and oppressive than Great Britain. 

They had rendered a most valuable service to 
the cause of America in the capture of Ticonderoga 
and Crown Point, the first offensive operations of 

1 Winsor says in his Critical History, vol. vii. p. 188 : " These 
tergiversations of Congress were not inducive of steadfast patriot- 
ism in the new State." 



THE EALDIMAND CORRESPONDENCE. 223 

the Americans ; on their own soil had fought their 
country's battles, one of which was largely instru- 
mental in the defeat of Burgoyne ; and had con- 
tributed a regiment of Green Mountain Boys to 
the Continental army. But when, after they had 
declared the independence which they had so long 
maintained, they asked to be admitted to a union 
with the sister States, Congress turned a deaf ear 
to their appeal, and listened only to the dissentient 
voices of New York and New Hampshire, greedy 
for spoil, and to the Southern States, jealous even 
so early of a preponderance of Northern common- 
wealths. 

Abandoned by those to whom they naturally 
looked for aid when threatened by the common 
enemy, whose advance upon their wide frontier 
they were too feeble to oppose, they took advan- 
tage of the attempts of that enemy to corrupt 
them to procure a cessation of hostilities, which 
saved not only their own State but the frontiers 
of New York from invasion. If, at any time, 
they really contemplated more than this, and a 
wholesome admonition to Congress to respect their 
rights, they never sought to work injury to the 
Confederation from which they were excluded ; 
and in the very beginning General Haldimand 
promised, if Vermont should be admitted an inde- 
pendent State in that Confederation, the "negoti- 
ation should cease, and any step that leads to it 
be forgotten." 

There was no treason. The Vermonters could 



224 VERMONT. 

plot no treason against a government in which 
they had no part. As independent as the United 
States, their right was as absolute to make terms 
with Great Britain, even to becoming a province 
under it, as they boldly declared to Congress they 
would do rather than submit to the government 
of New York. Ira Allen did not scruple to carry 
misrepresentation beyond even the vaguely denned 
limits of diplomacy, and to him is chiefly due any 
doubts of the integrity of his associates, the wise 
and patriotic fathers of the State. 

In the necessarily secret conduct of the policy 
adopted, they incurred the suspicions of friends 
and foes alike. Their own Warner and Stark, who 
had led the Green Mountain Boys to victory, sus- 
pected them, and General Haldimand complained 
of treachery; but they steadfastly pursued their 
course, to the accomplishment of all they desired. 1 

1 Vt. Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. ii. ; Governor and Council, voL 
ii. ; Early History of Vermont, Hiland Hall ; History of Vermont, 
Ira Allen ; Williams's History, vol. ii. ; Thompson's Vermont. 

The Haldimand correspondence, in a voluminous cipher, was 
obtained from the British Archives and sent to the distinguished 
antiquarian, Henry Stevens, of Barnet. These papers, now in 
the office of the secretary of state, were published in full by the 
Vermont Historical Society in 1871. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

UNIONS DISSOLVED. 

Vermont kept small garrisons in the forts at 
Rutland, Castleton, and Pittsford, and the militia 
in readiness to turn out in force when required, 
while two companies of rangers patrolled the fron- 
tier to watch the movements of the enemy. Her 
troops responded promptly to calls to act against 
the common enemy, as was proved when, to inter- 
cept the marauding force of Sir John Johnson, 
which had been ravaging the Mohawk Valley, 
Governor Clinton marched with the militia of 
Albany to Lake George, and sent an express to 
the commanding officer at Castleton to meet him 
at Ticonderoga with such force as he could muster. 
A day later, Ebenezer Allen, now major of the 
Vermont rangers, sent him word that he had ar- 
rived at Mount Independence with more than two 
hundred men, and was expecting a hundred more to 
join him, trusting that the governor would furnish 
boats to transport them across the lake. Johnson 
slipped by to the northward and escaped, but Clin- 
ton wrote to the New York delegates in Congress 
that the punctuality of the " militia of the Grants 
in complying with his request with 240 men did 
them great honor." 



226 VERMONT. 

When, early in October, 1780, the British, as 
already stated, came up the lake with eight large 
vessels and more than a thousand men, their de- 
signs were against New York and not against 
Vermont, as the British policy was then to favor 
Vermont, with a view to future operations. Fort 
Anne was taken, and Fort George shared the same 
fate after the greater part of its garrison, consist- 
ing of eighty men of Warner's Continental Regi- 
ment under Captain Chipman, had been killed or 
captured by a superior force of the enemy, which 
they encountered when expecting to meet only a 
scout that had driven in one of their messengers 
sent to Fort Edward. 

Marking its course with destruction, this inva- 
sion of the enemy created such a panic on the New 
York frontier that but few men could be raised 
there to oppose it. In this alarm, Governor Clin- 
ton so far acknowledged the existence of the " ideal 
Vermont State " as to direct an officer to write to 
Governor Chittenden for assistance. 1 He was im- 
mediately answered that the militia of the State 
were at the North, but the militia of Berkshire, 
which had been sent for, would be forwarded on 
their arrival. 

Before the pacific intentions of the British were 
known, the militia of Vermont were called out. 
They immediately mustered at Castleton under 
General Ethan Allen, and the assembly, then in 

1 Clinton afterwards denied giving any authority to this demand 
on the State of Vermont. 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 227 

session at Bennington, adjourned, that the members 
might take the field. Vermont, late in October, 
agreed to the truce, when her militia were dismissed, 
save a small force of scouts. 

During the progress of this invasion occurred 
the last important incursion of the Indians within 
the limits of Vermont. While Carleton's force 
swept with purposed harmlessness past the west- 
ern border of Vermont, an expedition set forth 
against Newbury, on the Connecticut, with the pu- 
tative object of capturing a Lieutenant Whitcomb, 
who, while scouting on the Richelieu some years 
before, had mortally wounded and then robbed 
the British General Gordon. The force was com- 
manded by Lieutenant Horton of the British army, 
seconded by a Canadian named La Motte, aided 
by one Hamilton, an escaped prisoner of war, who 
had been in Newbury and Royalton on parole of 
honor during the previous summer. It consisted 
of 300 men, 1 all but seven of whom were Indians. 
It is probable, from this preponderance of the sav- 
age element in its composition, that the real pur- 
pose of the expedition was the rapine which it so 
successfully accomplished. 

Guided by old warriors, who had often followed 
this ancient warpath of their people in the days 
when their onslaughts were the constant dread of 
the New England frontiers, the party took its way 
up the Winooski, past tenantless houses and de- 
serted farms, on whose broad intervale meadows 

1 H. Hall, Z. Steele's Indian Captive. 



228 VERMONT. 

the timid deer now grazed undisturbed. Then it 
came to where the wild stream wound through the 
unbroken wilderness ; now among the frost-painted 
forest of deciduous trees, and now in the black 
shade of evergreens. Among the great pines that 
then clad the narrow valley, where now stands the 
capital of the State, they overtook and made pris- 
oners two hunters from Newbury. These told the 
leaders that the people of their town were expect- 
ing an attack, and were prepared for it. Upon 
this they turned southward, and, following a branch 
of White River, on the 16th of October fell upon 
Royalton and neighboring towns. 

The attack was at first conducted in perfect si- 
lence, till the alarm of it spread among the inhab- 
itants ; then the infernal clamor of the warwhoop 
resounded among the hills that had so long been 
strangers to its echoes, giving to the panic another 
terror. 

Burning, pillaging, and making prisoners as they 
swooped with the celerity of falcons upon one and 
another isolated homestead or defenseless hamlet, 
they killed four persons, captured twenty-five 
others, and destroyed quantities of stock and gar- 
nered harvests. 

As they drew off with prisoners and booty, Mrs. 
Hendee, the brave young wife of a settler, followed 
them, so earnestly pleading for the release of her 
little son that he was restored to her ; and, upon 
her further entreaty, nine other small lads were set 
free. 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 229 

The alarm soon reached the settlements on the 
Connecticut, and a force of 250 men were mus- 
tered, and, under command of Captain House, be- 
gan a vigorous pursuit of the enemy in the night. 
Before daybreak they came up with the rear-guard 
of the marauders, who fired upon them, wounding 
one man. The fire was returned with better effect, 
killing one Indian and wounding another. The 
Indians then sent a prisoner to House with a threat 
that, if they persisted in the attack, the captives 
would all be immediately killed. 

While the pursuers were deliberating on this 
message, the enemy retreated to the Winooski, 
and, following the river to its mouth, there em- 
barked for Canada, whither they went unmolested. 
When they arrived at Montreal, the prisoners were 
" sold for a half Joe each," says Zadock Steele in 
his " Indian Captive." Most of them were ex- 
changed and returned to their homes in the follow- 
ing summer, but Steele, who was imprisoned with 
others taken elsewhere, did not escape until two 
years after his capture. After three weeks of 
starved and weary wandering through the wilder- 
ness, first on the western shore of Lake Champlain, 
then crossing at Split Rock on a raft, and then 
along the eastern shore and up Otter Creek, he and 
his two comrades reached the fort at Pittsford. 

Other towns, during the war, were visited by 
small bands of British and Indians that did little 
injury, and during the Haldimand negotiations 
they probably had orders from the British generals 
not to molest the inhabitants. 



230 VERMONT. 

Late in the fall of 1780, Vermont endeavored to 
form a union with the neighboring States for the 
mutual defense of the frontiers, as well as to secure 
from them an acknowledgment of her indepen- 
dence. Governor Chittenden, in November, wrote 
to Governor Clinton, making a formal demand on 
New York to relinquish her claim to the juris- 
diction of Vermont, at the same time proposing 
that New York should unite with Vermont against 
the British forces, especially such as should in- 
vade the frontiers of the two States from Canada. 
A similar letter was sent to each of the other 
claiming States. Massachusetts complied with the 
request. New Hampshire took no definite action ; 
and when Governor Clinton acquainted the legis- 
lature with this demand, he characterized it as 
" insolent in its nature, and derogatory to the 
honor of the State." The legislature, however, 
was disposed to adjust a quarrel which it was 
evidently useless to prolong. Resolutions were 
reported, which, though affirming the right of 
New York to the control of Vermont, declared it 
was inexpedient to further insist on such right, 
and provided for the appointment of commissioners 
to confer with commissioners from Vermont, with 
full powers to adjust terms for the cession of the 
territory to Vermont. The report was adopted by 
the Senate with but one dissenting vote, and the 
question of considering the resolutions received the 
affirmative vote of the House. Upon this, a mes- 
sage was received from Governor Clinton threaten- 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 231 

ing to prorogue the House if it should agree to 
carry these resolutions into effect. This threat put 
a stop to the proceedings, which promised to end 
the long and bitter controversy. General Schuyler 
was a member of the Senate, and, convinced of the 
futility of attempting to coerce Vermont into sub- 
mission to New York, and that Congress would not 
come to a decision in favor of his State, he took an 
active part in forwarding the conciliatory measures. 
Governor Clinton's obstinate opposition to them, 
against the calm judgment of the wise and patriotic 
Schuyler and the desire of the legislature of his 
State, can only be accounted for by his bitter en- 
mity to the intensely democratic people of Ver- 
mont, and the fact that he and members of his 
family were claimants under New York of grants 
of large tracts in the disputed territory. 

Vermont had already appointed agents to wait 
upon the legislators of New York, to agree upon 
and establish the line between the two States ; but 
when news of the failure of the pacific measures 
was received, the council decided neither to send 
the agents to Albany nor to " write any further to 
the General Assembly of New York at present." 

The intercepted letter from Lord George Ger- 
main afforded evidence that the British ministry 
were making overtures to the people of Vermont, 
and were somehow persuaded that they were dis- 
posed to accept them. Alarmed by this aspect of 
the affair, Congress was stirred to some favorable 
action, but made it an indispensable preliminary 



232 VERMONT. 

to the recognition of Vermont's independence and 
her admission to the Union that she relinquish her 
claims to lands and jurisdiction beyond her original 
limits. 

Vermont, having formed the unions, her legis- 
lature being in session at Charlestown, 1 and her 
newly elected lieutenant-governor being a resident 
of the East Union, refused to break the compact, 
or submit the question of her independence to any 
power, but was willing to refer the question of her 
boundaries to commissioners mutually chosen, and 
when admitted to the Federal Union would submit 
any suoh dispute to Congress. The action of Con- 
gress called forth a protest from New York, and 
her delegates were instructed to oppose all such 
measures. 

There now arose imminent danger of serious col- 
lisions in both unions. There was a probability 
that the government of New Hampshire was about 
to take measures to compel the submission to its 
authority of those who had joined Vermont ; and 
Governor Chittenden wrote to General Paine, the 
lieutenant-governor, to call out the militia east of 
the Green Mountains to assist the sheriff,. and, if 
New Hampshire made an attack with an armed 
force, to repel force by force. General Paine sent 
a copy of his orders to the president of New Hamp- 
shire, and informed him that he should carry them 
out if New Hampshire began hostilities ; at the 
same time commissioners were sent to the Assem- 

1 New Hampshire in the East Union. 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 233 

bly of New Hampshire to attempt an amicable 
arrangement of the matter. New Hampshire gave 
her revolted citizens forty clays in which to return 
to her, and thus armed conflict was averted. 

At the same time there were more serious dis- 
turbances in the Western Union. Colonel Van 
Rensselaer of Sancoik, acting under authority of 
New York, had arrested at New City (now Lan- 
singburg) a colonel of the Vermont militia, who 
presently escaped. Not long afterwards Van Rens- 
selaer himself was arrested and taken to Benning- 
ton, where, according to his own statement, he was 
well treated and soon discharged. Other arrests 
were made by both parties, all of whom were resi- 
dents of the union, and who, gathering in arms 
near Sancoik, for a while threatened each other. 
The adherents of Vermont so greatly outnumbered 
those of New York — only about eighty strong — 
that the latter did not dare to attack them, and the 
New York commander, Colonel Yates, applied in 
December, 1781, to General Gansevoort at Albany 
for reinforcements. Governor Chittenden now 
called out the militia of the original territory of 
Vermont, and Colonel Walbridge marched from 
Bennington with his regiment to Sancoik. Colonel 
Yates at once withdrew his force, and, on his 
retreat, met General Gansevoort, who, after an un- 
successful endeavor to obtain a detachment from 
General Stark at Saratoga, was marching into the 
disturbed region with eighty men, all that he had 
been able to raise from four regiments, one of 



234 VERMONT. 

which furnished only the colonel and one private. 
General Gansevoort demanded by what authority 
and for what purpose Colonel Walbridge invaded 
the territory of New York; and Walbridge an- 
swered that he had come to protect those who held 
allegiance to Vermont, and, though he did not de- 
sire warfare, he would not be answerable for the 
consequences if the liberty and property of such 
persons were interfered with. Finding his insig- 
nificant and indifferent force confronted by 500 
Green Mountain Boys, who were very much in 
earnest, General Gansevoort wisely withdrew, and 
left " those turbulent sons of freedom " masters of 
the bloodless field. 

Thus, most fortunately, no actual hostilities in 
either quarter resulted from the'se threatening dem- 
onstrations. But the fire was only covered, not 
quenched, and its smouldering embers were ready 
to burst into a blaze of fratricidal war whenever 
fanned by the first mischievous wind. That this 
did not happen was due to the wise and kindly 
advice given by Washington in a letter to Gov- 
ernor Chittenden, dated January 1, 1782. Admit- 
ting that Congress had virtually acknowledged the 
right of Vermont to independence in its late action, 
and its willingness to confirm it, provided the new 
State was confined to her originally claimed limits, 
he strongly urged the relinquishment of Vermont's 
claims to the Ea^t and West Unions. " You have 
nothing to do but withdraw your jurisdiction to the 
confines of your own limits, and obtain an acknow- 
ledgment of independence and sovereignty," 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 235 

When the Vermont Assembly met at Bennington 
in February, Washington's letter was laid before it 
and had the immediate effect of bringing about the 
measure which it advised. On the 22d the claims 
of Vermont to jurisdiction beyond the original lim- 
its of the New Hampshire Grants were formally 
relinquished, and, having made such compliance 
with the resolutions of Congress, four delegates were 
appointed by the assembly to negotiate the admis- 
sion of the State, two of the delegates being em- 
powered to take seats in Congress as representatives 
of Vermont upon her admission. 

Before Congress was apprised of this action, reso- 
lutions were proposed in that body that if, within 
one month after notification, Vermont complied with 
the resolutions of August, she should at once be 
admitted into the Union, but that non-compliance 
with them would be considered a manifest indica- 
tion of her hostility to the United States, whose 
forces should then be employed against her inhab- 
itants, and her territory be divided by the line of 
the Green Mountains between New Hampshire and 
New York. But the resolutions were not adopted, 
and the Vermont delegates presently arriving at 
Philadelphia officially informed Congress of the 
action of the legislature. 

The matter was referred to a committee of five, 
which reported on the 17th of April. Its sense was 
that, as Vermont had fully complied with the re- 
quirements of Congress, her recognition and admis- 
sion had become " necessary to be performed ; " and 



236 VERMONT. 

it submitted a resolution recognizing and acknow- 
ledging Vermont as a free, sovereign, and indepen- 
dent State, and authorizing the appointment of a 
committee to treat with the Vermont delegates upon 
the terms of admission. 

Notwithstanding all this, Congress again resorted 
to the policy of delay by which it had so long 
evaded a settlement of this controversy, and motions 
to consider the report were successively made and 
rejected. 

The Vermont delegates were indignant at such 
treatment, and after addressing a letter to the presi- 
dent of Congress stating the confident hope of rec- 
ognition which had induced Vermont to relinquish 
her unions, expressing their disappointment at the 
delay of Congress, and setting forth the critical 
situation in which Vermont was now placed, left 
unaided to oppose invasions of the enemy from Can- 
ada, they shook the dust of Philadelphia from their 
feet, " expecting to be officially acquainted when 
their attendance would be necessary." 

There was a universal feeling in Vermont that 
the legislature* had been duped by Congress into 
weakening the State. The people lost faith in the 
promises and resolutions of Congress, and there were 
frequent expressions of bitter feeling against it. A 
member of the legislature, gossiping with neigh- 
bors at the mill while their grists were grinding, de- 
clared that Congress had no business to interfere 
with the unions of Vermont ; and when a noted 
adherent of New York expressed a different opinion, 



UNIONS DISSOLVED. 237 

he cursed Congress roundly. " Curse Congress ! 
Have n't we waited long enough on them ? A pox 
on them ! I wish they would come to the mill now. 
I would put them between the millstones or under 
the water-wheel ! They have sold us like an old 
horse ! They have no business with our affairs. 
We know no such body of men ! " Another promi- 
nent worthy, who was in the secret of the Haldi- 
mand correspondence, said, " We 're fixin' up a pill 
that '11 make the Yorkers hum." Another declared 
in a public house that, " as long as the King and 
Parliament of Great Britain approved of and would 
maintain the State of Vermont, he was determined 
to drive it, and so were its leaders." 1 

There was a settled determination to maintain 
the independence of the State and to ask no favors 
of the vacillating Congress, though the legislature, 
that nothing might be wanting on their part, at its 
next session appointed agents empowered to ar- 
range terms of admission to the Union. 

1 B. H. Hall's Eastern Vermont. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

"THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS." 

For all its relinquishment of the unions, without 
which, according to the representations of some 
internal enemies, it had not the capacity to main- 
tain inhabitants enough to support the " charges, 
honor, power, and dignity of an inland State/' the 
commonwealth was constantly gaining strength by 
the rapid incoming of settlers from other States. 
These were chiefly from Connecticut, which had 
furnished so many of the founders and defenders of 
the State, and those who came now, being for the 
most part of the same mould and metal, gave a 
hearty support to the government under which 
they had chosen to live. 

However, some disturbances occurred in the south- 
eastern part of the State, where certain persons, en- 
couraged to resistance by Governor Clinton, opposed 
the raising of troops by Vermont for the defense of 
the frontiers. 

The town of Guilford was at that time the most 
populous in the State. A majority of the inhabit- 
ants were adherents of New York, and, having re- 
nounced the New Hampshire charter, had, while 
there was no actual government exercised in the 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 239 

Grants, formed a little republic, not ill-governed 
by the decisions of town meetings. Here was the 
most active opposition to the levy of troops. The 
adherents of New York who were drafted refused 
to serve, and the sheriff of Windham County was 
directed to seize their goods and chattels to the 
amount expended by the State in hiring their sub- 
stitutes. When the officer attempted to execute his 
warrant, a cow which he had seized was taken from 
him by a mob acting under a captain commissioned 
by New York. In levying on the property of 
Timothy Church, of Brattleboro, the sheriff was 
resisted by Church, and, when he attempted to arrest 
him, was prevented by three of Church's friends. 
Being unable to execute his warrants, the sheriff 
asked for a military force to assist him, whereupon, 
by the advice of the council, Governor Chittenden 
ordered Brigadier-General Ethan Allen to raise 
two hundred and fifty men, and march them into 
Windham County to support the civil authority. 

Not many days passed before Allen led 200 
mounted Green Mountain Boys into the rebellious 
region, making several arrests, and meeting with 
little opposition but from the tongue of a ter- 
magant, whose husband they were seeking, till 
they came to Guilford. Even here, where disaffec- 
tion most rankly flourished, there was no serious 
resistance to the arrests, but when inarching thence 
toward Brattleboro they were fired on by about 
fifty of the Guilford men, who ambuscaded the high- 
way. Allen at once marched his force back to 



240 VERMONT. 

Guilford, and made proclamation that if the people 
of that town did not peacefully submit to the au- 
thority of Yermont he would " lay it as desolate as 
Sodom and Gomorrah." Then, without further 
molestation, for the Yorkers " feared Ethan Allen 
more than the Devil," the prisoners, twenty in all, 
were conveyed to Westminster and lodged in jail. 
When brought to trial, fines were imposed on the 
lesser offenders, while four of the principal ones 
were sentenced to be forever banished from Ver- 
mont, not to return under pain of death, and their 
estates were forfeited to the State. Two had made 
themselves particularly odious by accepting com- 
missions under New York after having sworn alle- 
giance to Yermont. Timothy Church, who had 
borne a colonel's commission under New York, was 
one of them. He returned to the State, was taken, 
imprisoned for five months, and released upon tak- 
ing the oath of fidelity to Yermont, but the faithless 
creature was presently as busily as ever plotting 
against the government which he had twice sworn 
to support. The banished men appealed to Gov- 
ernor Clinton, but he, always lavish of promises, yet 
niggardly of fulfillmsnt, gave them no present com- 
fort, but forwarded a representation of their case 
to Congress. The New York delegates, aided by 
Charles Phelps, the most active of the Yermont 
refugees, succeeded 'in bringing Congress into a 
certain degree of hostility to Yermont. 

There were other reasons than the claims of 
New York, or the right of Yermont to independence, 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 241 

or the obligations of Congress to acknowledge it, 
that influenced the action of the different States. 
Those of New England, with the exception of New 
Hampshire, were inclined to favor Vermont from 
kinship and intimate relations with its people, " but 
principally," said Madison, " from the accession of 
weight they would derive from it in Congress." 
This " accession of weight " was as potent a reason 
for the opposition of the Southern States ; and an- 
other reason was the effect which a decision in 
favor of Vermont might have on the claims of Vir- 
ginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia to 
the vast tracts stretching westward to the Missis- 
sippi. For the same reason, Pennsylvania and 
Maryland inclined to favor Vermont, as did Dela- 
ware and New Jersey, from a desire to strengthen 
the interests of the small States. 

On the 5th of December resolutions quite hostile 
to Vermont were adopted by a vote of seven States, 
among whom were New Hampshire and New York, 
though, by a previous resolution of Congress, both 
were forbidden to vote on any question relative 
to the decision of this matter. The action of 
Vermont toward her rebellious inhabitants was 
denounced, and " the people inhabiting said dis- 
trict, claiming to be independent," were required to 
make full restitution to the persons who had been 
condemned to banishment, or deprived of their 
property by confiscation or otherwise, since the first 
of September, and that they be not molested on 
returning to their homes. It was declared that the 



242 VERMONT. 

United States would take effectual measures to en- 
force these resolutions in case they were disobeyed. 
Persons holding commissions under New York or 
the " district claiming to be independent " were 
forbidden to exercise authority over any inhabit- 
ants of said district, contrary to the resolutions of 
September 24, 1779, and June 2, 1780. A copy 
of these resolutions was transmitted to " Thomas 
Chittenden, Esq., of Bennington, in the district 
aforesaid, to be communicated to the people there- 
of." 1 A month later Governor Chittenden re- 
turned a forcible and spirited answer, reminding 
Congress of its solemn engagements" to Vermont, 
and giving* an extract from Washington's letter 
to him advising the restriction of the limits of 
Vermont, which advice had been complied with, in 
full reliance on the faith and honor of Congress to 
fulfill its agreement. The right of Congress to 
control the internal police of the State, from which 
it had never received any delegated power, was 
denied. If Congress attempted to carry out its 
threat of coercion, Vermont would probably appeal 
to General Washington, who, with most of the in- 
habitants of the contiguous States, favored the in- 
dependence of the State. " Would it not, then," 
he asked, " be more prudent to refer this dispute to 
New York and Vermont than to embroil the con- 
federacy of the United States therewith ? " The 
course pursued toward the rebellious persons was 

1 For these resolutions see Slade's State Papers, p. 177 ; also 
Chittenden's reply, p. 178. 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 243 

justified on the ground that nearly all of those ban- 
ished or fined had taken the oath of allegiance to 
Vermont, and were, according to the resolutions of 
Congress itself, amenable to no laws or regulations 
but those of Vermont. The remonstrance closed 
by earnestly soliciting the admission of Vermont to 
the Union, u agreeable to the before cited prelimi- 
nary agreement, which the committee of Congress 
have reported has become absolute and necessary 
on their part to be performed, and from which this 
State will not recede." 

When the legislature met in February, Governor 
Chittenden laid before it the resolutions of Con- 
gress, which called forth a remonstrance quite as 
spirited as his own. It declared the willingness of 
Vermont to comply with every reasonable require- 
ment of Congress ; " but when Congress require 
us," it continues, "to abrogate our laws and re- 
verse the solemn decisions of our courts of justice 
in favor of insurgents and disturbers of the public 
peace, we think ourselves justified to God and the 
world when we say we cannot comply with such 
their requisitions." "It would be licensing fac- 
tious subjects to oppose government with impu- 
nity." " As we have, from the commencement of 
the war, braved every danger and hardship against 
the usurpations of Britain in common with the 
United States, as our inherent right of sovereignty 
and jurisdiction stands confessed upon the princi- 
ples of the Revolution, and implied by the solemn 
transactions of Congress, we cannot but express 



244 VERMONT. 

our surprise at the reception of the late resolutions 
of Congress." 

The remonstrance of Governor Chittenden was 
printed and extensively circulated, especially among 
the officers of the Continental army, to inform 
them of the merits of a controversy in which they 
might soon be called upon to take part. General 
Washington's letter being referred to in it, he laid 
it and the one to which it was an answer before 
Congress, and at the same time wrote to Mr. Jones, 
a member of that body, reminding him that the 
committee on these affairs, of which he was a mem- 
ber, had approved of the reply to Governor Chit- 
tenden. He was sure that Vermont had a power- 
ful interest in the New England States, and with 
regard to the enforcement of the resolutions of 
Congress by the army he wrote : " Let me ask by 
whom that district of country is principally settled ? 
And of whom is your present army (I do not con- 
fine the question to this part of it, but will extend 
it to the whole) composed ? The answers are evi- 
dent, — New England men. It has been the opin- 
ion of some that the appearance of force would 
awe those people into submission. If the General 
Assembly ratify and confirm what Mr. Chittenden 
and his council have done, I shall be of a very 
different sentiment, and, moreover, that it is not a 
trifling force that will subdue them, even supposing 
they derive no aid from the enemy in Canada ; and 
that it would be .a very arduous task indeed if they 
should, to say nothing of a diversion which may 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 245 

and doubtless would be made in their favor from 
New York if the war with Great Britain should 
continue." He could not say that there " would 
be any difficulty with the army if it were to be or- 
dered on this service," but " should be exceedingly 
unhappy to see the experiment." There would be 
" a general unwillingness to imbrue their hands in 
the blood of their brethren." 

The threat of Congress certainly had not the 
effect of awing Vermont into any compliance with 
its behests, and if more than a threat was ever in- 
tended, nothing beyond it was ever attempted. 

No reparation was made to the offenders who 
had been so summarily dealt with ; and when two 
of the banished men ventured to return, thev were 
seized and imprisoned, but were released on their 
promise of submission to the laws of the State. 
When opposition was offered serious enough to 
require it, the militia was properly called out to 
enforce the civil authority; and the sturdy little 
commonwealth continued to exercise its jurisdiction 
unmolested by Congress, though the legislature of 
New York seethed with wrath and boiled over in 
protests and complaints. 

Constable Oliver Waters had made himself par- 
ticularly obnoxious to the New York party by 
his activity in making arrests, and while he was 
lodging at an inn in Brattleboro the house was 
attacked by twenty or thirty men. After firing 
through the doors and windows and wounding two 
of the inmates, they made forcible entry, and, seiz- 



246 VERMONT. 

ing Waters, carried him into Massachusetts, in- 
tending to deliver him to Governor Clinton at 
Poughkeepsie, but he was taken from them by a 
rescue party and brought safely to Vermont. This 
affair was the cause of vigorous action against the 
insurgents, several hundred of the militia turning 
out to aid the state troops. Several of the ring- 
leaders were taken, and several fled into Massachu- 
setts, whither they were not pursued. 

In February a new act was passed making pun- 
ishable by death the levying of war against the 
State by any citizen thereof. At the same time 
the governor and council were given discretionary 
power to grant pardons, during the recess of the 
legislature, to offenders " who should appear peni- 
tent and desirous of returning to their duty." In 
the following month all active opposition to the 
jurisdiction of Vermont ceased, and the troops 
were gradually withdrawn from Windham County. 
Many of the disaffected persons were granted par- 
dons and the restoration of their confiscated prop- 
erty on taking the oath of allegiance. Among 
these was Charles Phelps, who had been one of the 
most inveterate opponents of Vermont, but who 
now became a peaceable citizen of the State, and so 
continued during the remainder of his life. Many 
of the adherents of New York removed to lands on 
the Susquehanna, granted them by that State. 

New York made complaint to Congress of the 
employment of troops by Vermont to reduce resi- 
dents thereof who professed allegiance to New 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 247 

York, and again urged the intervention of Con- 
gress. Being apprised of this, Governor Chitten- 
den wrote a pungent letter to the president of 
Congress. " It seems they are willing Congress 
should settle this dispute," he says of New York, 
" as they have a mind, but not otherwise." Refer- 
ring to the desire expressed by New York that she 
might not be blamed if blood was shed in the as- 
sertion of her authority : " As to this bloody prop- 
osition, the council of this State have only to re- 
mark that Vermont does not wish to enter into a 
war with the State of New York, but she will act 
on the defensive, and expect that Congress and 
the twelve States will observe strict neutrality, 
and let the two contending States settle their own 
controversy." Referring to the suppression of the 
malcontents, he wrote : " This matter has been man- 
aged by the wisdom of the legislature of this State, 
who consider themselves herein amenable to no 
earthly tribunal." Congress was reminded of the 
impropriety of permitting New York and New 
Hampshire to vote on any motion which came be- 
fore it respecting Vermont, contrary to the express 
resolution of September, 1779, though it appeared 
they had ever since done so. In conclusion, the 
desire of Vermont for a confederation with the 
United States was reiterated. This letter was re- 
ferred to the same committee to which the repre- 
sentation of New York, and other papers relating 
to Vermont, had been committed. On the 29th of 
May, 1783, it reported in favor of Vermont, recit- 



248 VERMONT. 

ing the resolutions of August, 1781, and offering 
one recognizing the independence of the State, and 
admitting it into the Union. A few days later the 
New York delegates moved the postponement of 
another matter that this report might be taken up, 
but only New York and New Hampshire voted in 
favor of the motion. This was the last action 
taken by the Continental Congress in relation to 
Vermont, with whose affairs it thenceforth offered 
no interference. 

By the treaty of peace with Great Britain signed 
at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783, Vermont 
was included in the territory belonging to the 
United States. But she was in fact thenceforth, 
till her admission to the Union, what the legend 1 
on her copper coins declared her to be, " The Re- 
public of the Green Mountains," and independent 
of every other government. 

A standard of weights and measures was pre- 
scribed, the value of coins regulated, and a postal 
service established, the rates of postage being the 
same as those of the United States, for the su- 
perintendence of which a postmaster-general was 
appointed, and the post-riders were given the ex- 
clusive right of carrying letters and packages. 
The mails were carried on horseback, and in their 
long and lonely routes the riders encountered 
much discomfort of storm and cold on roads al- 
ways bad, often worse with blockades of snow or 
bottomless quagmires. The post-offices were for 

1 Vermontensium Res Publica. 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 249 

the most part a shelf in the great tavern bar, in- 
conspicuous among the array of bottles and de- 
canters that were in more frequent demand ; or a 
drawer in the village store, into which the infre- 
quent letters and few newspapers were promiscu- 
ously tumbled, to be searched through on demand 
of each inquirer. The furniture of one central 
office is still preserved, — a great chest of three 
drawers, each bearing in large letters the name of 
a town. 

Being out of the Confederation, Vermont could 
not be called on to bear any part of the debt in- 
curred by the war, by such general government as 
existed, and having made the taxes for the support 
of her own troops payable in provisions, which 
were always furnished, she herself owed no consid- 
erable debt, and this was in course of speedy liqui- 
dation by the sale of her lands, now in great de- 
mand by people of the neighboring States. Her 
bills of credit, issued in 1781, had suffered no de- 
preciation, and were faithfully redeemed. 

Under these circumstances, the people of the 
prosperous commonwealth were quite lukewarm 
concerning its admission to the Union, though they 
cultivated friendly relations with the neighboring 
States, and the legislature of the State enacted 
that all citizens of the United States should be 
equally entitled to all the privileges of law and 
justice with those of Vermont, and an annual elec- 
tion of delegates to Congress was provided for, 
though none had occasion to attend. 



250 VERMONT. 

Contrasting their condition with that of the pio- 
neers, these people might well be content with that 
which was now enjoyed. Those brave invaders of 
the wilderness had been opposed by all unkindly 
forces of nature, — unpropitious seasons, floods, the 
bitterness of almost arctic winters endured in mis- 
erable shelter with meagre fare, and by more cruel 
man, the prowling, murderous savage and his as re- 
lentless Christian allies ; and withal had borne the 
heavy loneliness of isolation, lightened only by toil 
save when Nature changed her mood and conversed 
in songs of familiar birds, voices of wind-swept 
trees and babble of streams whose torrential rage 
was spent, or smiled in sunshine from the little 
patch of sky, and in the bloom of innumerable 
flowers out of the border of the grim forest. The 
dangers and privations of pioneer life had now 
been passed through, and there were peace and 
abundance of all that simple lives required. 

The " plumping- mill " — the rude device for 
pounding corn in a huge mortar, with a pestle 
hung from a spring-pole — went out of use, and the 
long journeys on foot or on horseback to the grist- 
mill forty miles away were no longer necessary. 
The wild streams were tamed to the turning of 
millstones, as well as to plying the saws that were 
incessantly gnawing into the heart of the woods. 

The wild forest had receded and given place to 
broad fields of tilth, meadow land, and pastures, 
not now in the uncouth desolation of stumps and 
log-heaps, but dotted with herds and flocks. The 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 251 

jangle of the sheep-bell was as frequent as the note 
of the thrush in the half-wild upland pastures, for 
two shillings were deducted from the lists for each 
pound of wool raised during the year. Orchards 
were beginning to whiten hillsides with bloom and 
color them with fruitage, for every acre with forty 
growing trees was exempted from taxation. 

But while Vermont continued very indifferent and 
almost inactive concerning the acknowledgment 
of her independence by Congress, her old enemy 
had come to desire what she had so long opposed. 
It had become apparent to New York that the ad- 
mission of the State to the Union would be to her 
own advantage. The establishment of Vermont as 
a free and independent State was an accomplished 
fact ; her interest in the affairs of the nation, were 
she an acknowledged part of it, would in the main 
accord with that of New York. There was, then, 
no good reason why New York should continue to 
oppose her admission merely in the selfish and in- 
significant interest of the land speculators, and in 
the blind lead of Governor Clinton's persistent 
enmity. In accordance with this wiser view, the 
legislature of New York, on the 15th of July, 1789, 
appointed commissioners with full power to ac- 
knowledge the independence of Vermont, and settle 
all matters of controversy with that State. In Oc- 
tober Vermont appointed commissioners to treat 
with those of New York, and finally determine 
everything which obstructed the union of Vermont 
with the United States. The principal difficulty 



252 VERMONT. 

was the adjustment of the compensation for lands 
claimed by citizens of New York which had been 
re-granted by Vermont, but after two or three 
meetings the commissioners came to an amicable 
arrangement of this most troublesome question. 
In October, 1790, the commissioners of New York 
declared the consent of the legislature of that State 
to the admission of Vermont to the Union, and that 
upon such admission all claims of New York to 
jurisdiction within the limits of Vermont should 
cease ; that the boundary line between the two 
States should be the western lines of towns granted 
by New Hampshire, and the mid-channel of Lake 
Champlain. 

For the adjustment of the land claims, it was 
declared that if the legislature of Vermont should 
before the 1st of January, 1792, agree to pay to the 
State of New York the sum of $30,000 on or be- 
fore the first day of January, 1794, all rights and 
titles to land granted by the colonial or state gov- 
ernment of New York should cease, except those 
which had been made in confirmation of the grants 
of New Hampshire. 

The legislature of Vermont at once acceded to 
this arrangement, and on the 28th of the same 
month passed an act directing the state treasurer 
to pay the sum named to the State of New York,, 
and to accept the line proposed as a perpetual 
boundary between the two States. 

Thus peaceably ended the controversy that for 
more than a quarter of a century had been an almost 



THE REPUBLIC OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 253 

continual annoyance to the people of this district, 
and in its later stages a source of danger to the 
whole country. 

The Assembly of Vermont called a convention 
to consider the expediency of joining the Federal 
Union. This convention met at Bennington, Jan- 
uary 6, 1791, and though at first several members 
were not in favor of union, after a debate of three 
days the question was decided in the affirmative by 
a vote of 105 yeas to 3 nays. A few days later the 
assembly chose Nathaniel Chipman and Lewis R. 
Morris commissioners to negotiate with Congress 
for the admission of the State to the Union. The 
commissioners went immediately to Philadelphia, 
and laid before the president the proceedings of 
the legislature and convention. 

On the eighteenth day of February, 1791, Con- 
gress, without debate or one dissenting vote, passed 
an act declaring that on the fourth day of March 
next, "the said State, by the name and style of 
the State of Vermont, shall be received into this 
Union as a new and entire member of the United 
States of America." So at last the star, that so 
long had shone apart, now added its constant ray 
to the lustre of the constellation. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

THE NEW STATE. 

When Vermont had taken her place in the 
Union, her state government continued to run 
smoothly in its accustomed lines, still guided by 
the firm hand and wise counsel of her first gov- 
ernor. With unabated faith in the wisdom, in- 
tegrity, and patriotism of Thomas Chittenden, the 
freemen of Vermont again and again reelected 
him to the chief magistracy of the commonwealth 
after its admission, as with but one exception 
they had done in the twelve years preceding that 
event. 

Notwithstanding the simplicity of home life in 
those days, " Election Day " was observed with a 
pomp and ceremony well befitting the occasion. 

An old newspaper * of the day tells us that the 
morning was ushered in by beat of drums, and that 
the governor-elect, Thomas Chittenden, Esq., and 
Lieutenant-Governor Peter Olcott, accompanied by 
several members of the council, Jonas Fay, Sam- 
uel Safford, Walbridge, Bayley, and Strong, old 
associates in the stalwart band of Green Mountain 
Boys, were met at some distance from the town of 

1 Vermont Journal, October 18, 1791. 



THE NEW STATE. 255 

Windsor by a troop of horse, a company of artil- 
lery, and one of infantry, all in " most beautiful 
uniforms/' doubtless of the beloved Continental 
buff and blue, glittering with great brass buttons, 
whereon were inscribed the initials " G. W." and 
the legend, " Long live the President." 

As this corps, made up of veterans who had 
smelled powder when it burned with deadly intent, 
and of martial youths whose swords were yet un- 
fleshed, marched proudly to the screech of fife and 
beat of drum, the chronicler writes, their evolutions 
and discipline would have gained the applause of 
regular troops. Upon the formal announcement of 
the result of the election, the artillery company 
fired a salute of fifteen guns, and then the governor 
and council, the members of the house, and all the 
good people there assembled, repaired to church, 
and listened to the election sermon, delivered by 
the Rev. Mr. Shuttleworth " with his usual energy 
and pathos ; " and in the evening the happy occa- 
sion was further celebrated by an " elegant ball 
given by a number of Gentlemen of this town to 
a most brillant assembly of Gentlemen and Ladies, 
of this and neighboring States." 

The sessions of the legislature usually continued 
about four weeks, and its business principally con- 
sisted in the granting of new townships, levying 
a small tax, and the passage of necessary laws. 
Frequent petitions were received, and many granted, 
to establish lotteries to aid towns in the building 
and repairing of bridges and roads ; to remove 



256 VERMONT. 

obstructions in the channel of the Connecticut ; to 
enable individuals to carry out private enterprises, 
such as the building of a malt and brew house ; in 
one case to furnish a blind man means wherewith 
to go to Europe to have an operation performed on 
his eyes ; and at least one petition was presented 
praying for the grant of a lottery to build a 
church ! 

Some of the statutes made for the government 
of the commonwealth in its turbulent infancy, and 
which were soon repealed, are curious enough to 
deserve mention. 

Manslaughter was punishable by forfeiture of 
possessions, by whipping on the naked back, and 
by branding the letter " M." on the hand with a 
hot iron. Whoso was convicted of adultery was 
to be punished by whipping on the naked body not 
exceeding thirty-nine stripes, and " stigmatized or 
burnt on the forehead with the letter ' A ' on a 
hot iron," and was to wear the letter "A" on the 
back of the outside garment, in cloth of a different 
color, and as often as seen without it, on conviction 
thereof, to be whipped ten stripes. The counter- 
feiter was punished by having his right ear cut off, 
and by branding with the letter " C " and being 
kept at hard labor during life. Burglary and 
highway robbery were punished by branding with 
the letter " B " on the forehead, by having the 
right ear nailed to a post and cut off, and by whip- 
ping. A second offense entailed the loss of the 
other ear and the infliction of a severer whipping, 



THE NEW STATE. 257 

and for the third offense the criminal was to be 
" put to death as being incorrigible." 

Every town was obliged to maintain a good 
pair of stocks set in the most public place, and in 
these were exposed the convicted liar, the blas- 
phemer, and the drunkard. In such place also 
must be maintained a sign-post, whereon all public 
notices were placed, with occasional ghastly gar- 
nishment of felons' ears. 

Every town assigned a particular brand for its 
horse kind, each one of which was to be marked 
on the left shoulder by a regularly appointed 
brander, who should record a description of every 
horse branded. All owners of cattle, sheep, or 
swine were required to ear-mark or brand such 
animals, and cause their several marks to be regis- 
tered in the town book. Many of these ear-marks 
may yet be seen described and rudely pictured 
in faded ink on the musty pages of old record- 
books. 

There was a general revision of the laws in 
1787, and a second revision ten years later, 
whereby the barbarous severity of the penal laws 
was considerably lessened. 

After admission to the Union, Vermont was as 
faithful to the newly assumed bond as she had 
been steadfast and unflinching in the assertion of 
her independence of Congress when that body at- 
tempted to exercise its authority over the unrecog- 
nized commonwealth. She was not backward in 
furnishing soldiers for the common defense. In 



258 VERMONT. 

1792, Captain William Eaton, who some 3 r ears 
later won renown as the heroic leader of a bold 
and successful expedition against the city of Derne 
in Tripoli, raised a company for service against the 
Indians in the Northwest. There, in the fourth 
sub-legion of General Wayne's army, these brave 
men well sustained the valorous reputation of the 
Green Mountain Boys, bearing the evergreen sprig 
to its accustomed place in the battle-front. At the 
battle of Miami, of the eleven privates killed in 
the fourth sub-legion five were Vermonters. The 
patriotism of these three-years' volunteers was 
stimulated by a bounty of eight dollars, and a 
monthly wage of three dollars. 

The pioneers of Vermont aged early under the 
constant strain of anxiety and hardship which their 
life entailed, and though most of the leaders were 
spared amid the dangers of the frontier, the perils 
of war, and intestine feuds, few reached the allotted 
term of man's life. Warner, whose vigorous con- 
stitution was sapped by the stress of continuous 
campaigns, died in 1785, aged only forty-two, six 
years before the State in whose defense he first 
drew his sword became a recognized member of 
the nation to whose service he unselfishly devoted 
the best years of his brave life. Neither was 
Ethan Allen permitted to see the admission of 
Vermont to the Union, but was suddenly stricken 
down by apoplexy, in the robust fullness of his 
strength, two years before that event. Noble and 
generous in his nature, bold, daring, and resolute, 



THE NEW STATE. 259 

"he possessed," says Zadoc Thompson, "an un- 
usual degree of vigor both of body and mind, and 
an unlimited confidence in his own abilities." 

Vermont has given him the first place among 
her heroes, has set his marble effigy in the national 
capitol, in her own, and on the monument that 
marks "his grave ; yet to that brave and modest sol- 
dier, Seth Warner, the knightliest figure in her 
romantic history, the State he served so well has 
not given so much as a tablet to commemorate his 
name and valorous deeds. It is as if, in their 
mouldering dust, the character of the living men 
was preserved, the one still self-asserting, the other 
as unpretentious in the eternal sleep as he was in 
life. Though Governor Chittenden's age was not 
beyond that in which modern statesmen are still 
active, infirmity and disease were upon him, ad- 
monishing him that he could no longer bear the 
fatigues of the office which for eighteen j^ears he 
had held. In the summer of 1797 he announced 
that he would not again be a candidate for the 
governorship. He had seen the State, which he 
had been so largely instrumental in moulding out 
of the crude material of scattered frontier settle- 
ments, and which his strong hand had defended 
against covetous neighbors and a foreign enemy, 
in the full enjoyment of an honorable place in the 
sisterhood of commonwealths, and felt that his 
work was done. While still in office, a few weeks 
later, his honorable life closed at his home in Wil- 
liston, among the fertile fields that his hand had 



260 VERMONT. 

wrought out of the primeval wilderness, and his 
death was sincerely mourned by the people whom 
he had so long ruled with patriarchal care. 

At the next election, Isaac Tichenor was chosen 
governor. He was a native of New Jersey, and, 
becoming a resident of Vermont in 1777, he pres- 
ently took an active part in the affairs of the 
State. For several years previous to his election 
to the first place in its gift, he had served it as 
a member of the council, chief justice, and United 
States senator. No choice was made by the people, 
though he received a plurality of the popular vote, 
and the election devolved upon the assembly. The 
Federalist party predominating therein, he was 
elected by a large majority. He was ten times 
reelected, and, such faith had the people in him, 
several times after his party was a minority in the 
State, although the acrimony of party strife had 
begun to embitter its politics. 

In the early part of Tichenor's administration, 
while the legislature was in session at Vergennes 
in the autumn of 1798, five chiefs of the Cognah- 
waghnahs presented a claim of their people to an- 
cient hunting grounds in Vermont, bounded by a 
line extending from Ticonderoga to the Great 
Falls of Otter Creek, and in the same direction 
to the height of land dividing the streams between 
Lake Champlain and the river Connecticut, thence 
along the height of land opposite Missisque, and 
then down to the bay, and comprising about a 
third of the State. The Indians were handsomely 



THE NEW STATE. 261 

entertained during their stay, and dismissed with 
a present of a hundred dollars, " well pleased with 
their own policy," says Williams., " and with that 
of the Assembly of Vermont, hoping that the game 
would prove still better another season." 

An investigation of this claim resulted in a de- 
cision that, if any such right ever existed, it had 
been extinguished by the cession of the lands in 
question to the United States by Great Britain, 
whose allies these Indians were in the late war. 

When, upon the passage of the alien and sedi- 
tion laws by Congress, the legislatures of Virginia 
and Kentucky, in 1798, passed resolutions, which 
were sent to the legislatures of all the other States, 
declaring these acts null, the Assembly of Vermont 
made a firm, dignified, and forcible reply, denying 
the right of States to sit in judgment on the con- 
stitutionality of the acts of Congress, or to declare 
which of its acts should be accepted or which re- 
jected. Considering the almost recent antagonism 
which had existed between Congress and the State 
of Vermont, the one by turns vacillating or threat- 
ening, the other boldly defiant and denying the 
right of interference with her affairs, it might be 
thought that the new commonwealth would be 
found arrayed among the extreme defenders of 
state rights rather than so stoutly opposing them. 

Party spirit had begun to embitter the politics 
of the State, and the growing minority of Republi- 
cans was hotly arrayed against the still predominant 
Federalists. The Federal strength was further 



262 VERMONT. 

weakened by the imprisonment, under the sedition 
law, of Matthew Lyon, one of the Vermont mem- 
bers of Congress. His free expression of opinion 
concerning the conduct of the administration of 
President Adams would not now be considered 
very extravagant, but for it he was sentenced to 
four months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of 
11,000. 

While in prison at Vergennes, he wrote letters 
which it was thought would cause his re-arrest be- 
fore he could leave the State to take his seat in Con- 
gress, to which he had been reelected while in 
prison. Measures were taken for the payment of 
his fine in indisputably legal tender, one citizen of 
the State providing the sum in silver dollars, and 
one ardent Republican of North Carolina coming 
all -the way from that State on horseback with the 
amount in gold. But Lyon's many political friends 
desired to share the honor of paying his fine, and it 
was arranged that no person should pay more than 
one dollar. No sooner had he come forth from prison 
than his fine was paid, and he was placed in a sleigh 
and driven up the frozen current of Great Otter to 
Middlebury, attended, it is said, by an escort in 
sleighs, the train extending from the one town to 
the other, a distance of twelve miles. With half 
as many, he might boast of a greater following than 
had passed up the Indian Road under any leader 
since the bloody days of border warfare when Wau- 
banakee chief or Canadian partisan led their ma- 
rauding horde along the noble river. 



THE NEW STATE. 263 

Lyon was of Irish birth, and came to America at 
the age of thirteen under an indenture for his pas- 
sage money. This was sold for a pair of steers to 
one of the founders of Danville, Vermont, and Lyon 
was wont to swear " By the bulls that redeemed 
me." He served in the Vermont troops in the 
Revolution, and for a time was paymaster in War- 
ner's regiment. He was a member of the Dorset 
convention, and for several years took a prominent 
part in the politics of the State, of which he was an 
enterprising and useful citizen. His second wife 
was the daughter of Governor Thomas Chittenden. 
In 1801 he removed to Kentucky, and was eight 
years a member of Congress from that State. He 
died at the age of seventy-six, in the territory of 
Arkansas, soon after his election as delegate to 
Congress. 

Four years after the arbitrary measures against 
Lyon by a Federalist majority in the legislature, 
the opposite party gained the ascendency in that 
body, though Tichenor had been reelected by a 
majority of the freemen of the State. 

The customary address of the governor, and the 
reply of the house thereto, was the occasion of a hot 
party debate, which was kept up for several days, 
and it was expected that the Republicans would use 
their newly acquired power to place adherents of 
their party in all the offices at their disposal. But 
the wise counsel of the first governor still prevailed, 
and there were but few removals for mere political 
causes. Though party spirit was rancorous enough, 



264 VERMONT. 

the elevation of men to office, more for their political 
views than for their fitness, did not obtain in the 
politics of Vermont till the bad example had for 
some years been set by the party in power at the 
seat of national government. 

Until 1808, the legislature of Vermont wandered 
from town to town, like a homeless vagrant, having 
held its sessions in fifteen different towns, one of 
which, Charlestown, was outside the present limits 
of the commonwealth, though then in its Eastern 
Union. This year, as if partially fulfilling the 
threat of Ethan Allen, it gathered among the fast- 
nesses of the mountains, and established a perma- 
nent seat at Montpelier, which town was chosen as 
the capital for being situated near the geographical 
centre of the State. A large wooden structure, three 
stories in height and of quaint fashion, was erected 
for a state house. The seats of the representatives' 
hall were of unpainted pine plank, which so invited 
the jackknives of the true-born Yankee legislators 
that in a quarter of a century they were literally 
whittled into uselessness. A handsome new state 
house of Vermont granite was built in 1835 on 
nearly the same ground. Twenty-two years later 
this was destroyed by fire, and replaced by a larger 
one of the same style and material. 

Commercial intercourse with Canada had been 
established soon after the close of the war, princi- 
pally by the people of western Vermont, to whom 
the gate of the country now opened the easiest exit 
for their products, the most of which were the lum- 



TEE NEW STATE. 265 

ber and potash that the slain forest yielded to axe 
and fire. 

As early as 1784, steps were taken by the inde- 
pendent commonwealth to open free trade with the 
Province of Quebec, and a channel through it for 
such trade with Europe. Ira Allen, Joseph and 
Jonas Fay were appointed agents to negotiate this 
business. Only Ira Allen acted in this capacity, 
and in the following year he reported having suc- 
ceeded so far as to procure a free exchange of pro- 
duce and manufactures, except peltry and a few 
articles of foreign production. 

These negotiations, occurring with the arrival of 
English troops in Nova Scotia, gave rise to alarm- 
ing rumors that Vermont was taking measures to 
become a British dependency ; but this freedom of 
commerce through Lake Champlain and the Riche- 
lieu, and exclusively confined thereto, was accorded 
by the Canadian government to the States already 
in the Union as well as to the independent re- 
public of Vermont, though the latter derived the 
greater benefit from it. To further promote this 
commerce, Ira Allen proposed the cutting of a 
ship canal to navigably connect the waters of Lake 
Champlain with those of the St. Lawrence, and 
made a voyage to England with the object of en- 
gaging the British government in this work. He 
offered, under certain conditions, to cut the canal 
at his own expense, and continued, though unsuc- 
cessfully, to urge the government of his own State 
to aid him in the enterprise so late as 1809. 



266 VERMONT. 

The great pines, that fifty years before had been 
reserved for the " masting of His Majesty's navy," 
were felled now by hardy yeomen who owed alle- 
giance to no earthly king, and, gathered into enor- 
mous rafts, voyaged slowly down the lake, impelled 
by sail and sweep. They bore as their burden bar- 
rels of potash that had been condensed from the 
ashes of their slain brethren, whose giant trunks 
had burned away in grand conflagrations that made 
midnight hills and vales and skies bright with 
lurid flame. The crew of the raft lived on board, 
and the voyage, though always slow, was pleasant 
and easy when the south wind filled the bellying 
sail, wafting the ponderous craft past the shifting 
scene of level shore, rocky headland, and green 
islands. In calms or adverse winds, it was hard 
work to keep headway with the heavy sweeps, and 
the voyage grew dangerous when storms arose, and 
the leviathan heaved and surged on angry waves 
that threatened to sever its huge vertebrae and cast 
it piecemeal to the savage rocks. 

Sloops, schooners, and square-sailed Canada boats 
plied to and fro, bearing that way cargoes of wheat 
and potash ; this way, salt and merchandise from 
over-seas. After midwinter, the turbulent lake be- 
came a plain of ice, affording a highway for traffic 
in sleighs, long trains of which fared to Montreal 
with loads of produce to exchange for goods or 
coin. 

The declaration of what was commonly called 
the land embargo in 1808, cutting off this busy 



THE NEW STATE. 267 

commerce, and barring western Vermont from its 
most accessible market, caused great distress and 
dissatisfaction, and gave rise to an extensive con- 
traband trade. 

The Collector of the District of Vermont wrote 
to Mr. Gallatin, United States Secretary of the 
Treasury, that the law could not be enforced with- 
out military aid. Upon this, President Jefferson 
issued a proclamation, calling on the insurgents to 
disperse, and on all civil and military officers to 
aid in quelling all disturbances. 

There is nothing in the newspapers of the day 
or in official documents to show any combination 
to oppose the law, and at a regularly called town 
meeting the citizens of St. Albans, through their 
selectmen, formally protested to the President 
" that no cause for such a proclamation existed." 
Nevertheless, the militia of Franklin County were 
called out by Governor Smith, a Republican, who 
had that year been elected over Tichenor. The 
troops were assigned to duty at Windmill Point in 
Alburgh, to prevent the passage of certain timber 
rafts, which, however, got safely past the post in 
the night. For this the Franklin County troops 
were unjustly blamed, and, to their great indig- 
nation, were sent to their homes, while militia from 
Rutland County and a small force of regulars were 
brought up to take their place. 

The smugglers grew bold, plying their nefarious 
traffic by night in armed bands of such strength 
that the revenue officers seldom ventured to attack 



268 VERMONT. 

them. A notorious craft named the Black Snake 
had crept a few miles up the Winooski with a 
cargo of contraband goods, when she was seized by 
a party of militia. Twelve soldiers, under com- 
mand of Lieutenant Farrington, were detailed to 
take her to the lake. The smugglers ambuscaded 
them, firing on them repeatedly from the willow- 
screened bank with a wall-piece charged with 
bullets, slugs, and buckshot, killing three of the 
party and wounding the lieutenant. The remain- 
der of the militia hurried to the rescue of their 
comrades, and succeeded in taking eight of the 
smugglers, while two escaped who were afterwards 
captured. At a special term of the Supreme Court 
one of them was sentenced to death, 1 and three to 
ten years' imprisonment, after first standing in the 
pillory, and two of the smugglers to receive fifty 
lashes each. 

The temper of both parties grew hotter under 
the existing conditions, but expended itself in vio- 
lent language, and there was no further resistance 
to the laws. The Federalist party gained sufficient 
strength to reelect Governor Tichenor at the en- 
suing election, but in the following year the Repub- 
licans elected their candidate, Jonas Galusha, who 
was continued in the office four years. 

1 This was the first instance of capital punishment since the 
organization of the State. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 

The continued aggressions of Great Britain were 
gradually but surely tending to a declaration of 
war against the imperial mistress of the sea. To 
the impressment of our seamen, the search and 
seizure of our vessels, the wanton attack of the 
Leopard on the Chesapeake, and many other out- 
rages, was added the insult of attempting the same 
policy toward all New England which years before 
England had pursued in the effort to draw Vermont 
to her allegiance. 

To open communication w r ith the leading men 
therein, and to ascertain the feeling of the New 
England States, in all of which, except Vermont, 
the party opposing the administration of Madison 
was in the ascendant, Sir James Craig, Governor- 
General of Canada, employed an adventurer named 
John Henry, a naturalized citizen of the United 
States. Coming from Canada, he passed through 
Vermont, tarrying awhile at Burlington and Wind- 
sor. From the first town he wrote an unwarranted 
favorable report to his employer, representing that 
Vermont would not sustain the government in case 
of war ; but, on reaching Windsor, he was led to 



270 VERMONT. 

give a less favorable representation. He then 
journeyed through New Hampshire, and, at length 
arriving at Boston, wrote many letters in cipher to 
Sir James. He represented the opposition of the 
New England Federalists to the administration to 
be of so violent a nature that, in case of war, they 
would at least remain neutral, and probably would 
bring about a separation of those States from the 
Union, and their formation into a dependency of 
Great Britain. Having performed the duty as- 
signed him, he received from the British govern- 
ment, as reward for his services, not the appoint- 
ment he asked, but only compliments. In retalia- 
tion for this poor requital, he divulged the whole 
correspondence to President Madison, receiving 
therefor the sum of $50,000. In the manifesto 
of the causes of war, this attempt at disruption 
was declared to be an "act of greater malignity 
than any other." 

On the 18th of June, 1812, an act was passed 
by Congress declaring war against Great Britain. 
A considerable proportion of the citizens of the 
United States were strongly opposed to a resort to 
arms, believing that all disputes might have been 
adjusted more certainly by further negotiations 
than by the arbitrament of war, for which the 
nation was so ill-prepared. 

So it was in Vermont. Of the 207 members of 
the Assembly which was that year elected, seventy- 
nine were Federalists opposed to the war, who 
made earnest protest against a resolution of the 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 271 

majority, declaring that those who did not actively 
support this measure of the government " would 
identify themselves with the enemy, with no other 
difference than that of locality." But the over- 
whelming majority of Republicans, with a gov- 
ernor of their own politics, framed the laws to 
their own liking. An act was passed prohibit- 
ing all intercourse between the people of Ver- 
mont and Canada without permit from the gov- 
ernor, under a penalty of $1,000 fine and seven 
years' imprisonment at hard labor ; also, an act 
exempting the bodies and property of officers and 
soldiers of the militia from attachment while in 
actual service, and levying a tax of one cent per 
acre on all lands, for arming and supporting the 
militia to defend the frontiers. 

Soon after the declaration of war, recruiting of- 
fices were opened in the State, a cantonment for 
troops was established at Burlington, and small 
bodies of volunteers were stationed at several points 
on the northern frontier. On either side of the 
scattered settlers of this region lay the forest, — on 
this, the scarcely broken wilderness of northern 
Vermont ; on that, the Canadian wilds, that still 
slept in almost primeval solitude. The old terror 
of Indian warfare laid hold of these people, and 
their imagination filled the gloomy stretch of north- 
ward forest with hordes of red warriors awaiting 
the first note of conflict to repeat here the horrors 
of the old border warfare. In some of these towns 
stockades were built, and from all came urgent 



272 VERMONT. 

appeals to the state and general government for 
arms to repel the expected invasion. One frontier 
town was obliged to borrow twenty muskets, and 
the selectmen were authorized to purchase twenty- 
five pounds of powder and one hundred pounds of 
lead on six months' credit, a circumstance which 
shows how poorly prepared Vermont was for war. 

Two months before the declaration of war, Con- 
gress authorized the President to detach 100,000 
militia to march at a minute's notice, to serve for 
six months after arriving at the place of ren- 
dezvous. Vermont's apportionment was 3,000, and 
was promptly raised. 

In November an act was passed by the legisla- 
ture for the raising of sixty-four companies of in- 
fantry, two of cavalry, and two of artillery, to hold 
themselves ready at a minute's notice to take the 
field. 

It appears that this corps was formed almost ex- 
clusively from exempts from military service. In 
one company, says an old paper, 1 was a venerable 
patriarch who could still shoot and walk well, and 
who " was all animation at the sound of the drum." 

As shown by the disbursements by the State for 
premiums to recruits, it appears that only the old 
and populous States of Massachusetts, New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Virginia furnished more men to 
the regular army than this young commonwealth, 
which was half a wilderness. The 30th and 31st 
regiments of infantry were composed entirely of 

1 Niles'' Begister. 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 273 

Vermonters, as were largely the 11th and 26th. 
The 3,000 detached Vermont militia were as- 
sembled at Plattsburgh in the fall of 1812. In 
November General Dearborn marched from Platts- 
burgh to the lines with an army of 5,000 men, 
2,000 of whom were militia. At the La Colle 
he made an ill-planned and feebly conducted 
attack upon a very inferior British force, and 
then retired to Plattsburgh. A large number of 
Vermonters shared the barren honors of this expe- 
dition under an incompetent leader. The militia 
were presently disbanded, and four regiments of 
regulars crossed the lake and took post at Bur- 
lington. 

All along the lake, during the summer, there had 
been a stir of busy preparation. Vessels of war 
were built and fitted out to contest the supremacy 
on the lake with the British naval force already 
afloat. " Niles' Register " reports the arrival at 
Plattsburgh 1 of the sloop of war President, and 
a little later that of the smaller sloops, which, with 
six gunboats, constituted at the time the American 
force on Lake Champlain, all under the command 
of Lieutenant Macdonough. But the belligerent 
craft of either nation held aloof from more than 
menace, while sullen autumn merged into the bitter 
chill of northern winter, and the ships were locked 
harmless in their ice-bound harbors. 

When returning warm weather set them free, 
some British gunboats crept up the lake, and on the 

1 October 27, 1812. 



274 VERMONT. 

3d of June the Growler and Eagle went in pur- 
suit of them, chasing them into the Richelieu. 
Having come in sight of the works on Isle aux 
Noix, the sloops put about and endeavored to make 
their way back to the open lake against the current 
of the river and a south wind. Three row-galleys 
now put out from the fort, and began playing on 
them with guns of longer range and heavier metal 
than those of the sloops, upon whom a galling fire 
of musketry was also rained from the river banks. 
The vessels poured a storm of grape and canister 
upon the green wall of leafage that hid the mus- 
keteers, and hurled ineffectual shot at the distant 
galleys, maintaining a gallant defense for more than 
four hours. Then a heavy shot from one of the 
galleys crushed through the hull of the Eagle below 
the water-line, sinking her instantly, but in shallow 
water, so that her men were rescued by boats from 
shore. Fifteen minutes later a shot carried away 
the forestay and main boom of the Growler, and 
being now unmanageable she was forced to strike. 
Only one of the Americans was killed, and nine- 
teen were wounded, while the loss of the British 
was far greater, but the entire crews of both sloops 
were taken prisoners. Thus disastrously to the 
Americans resulted the first naval encounter of 
this war on these waters. The captured sloops 
were refitted, and, under the names of Finch and 
Chub, made a brave addition to the British fleet 
upon the lake. 

The defenseless condition of the western shore in- 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 275 

vited attack, and on the last day of July Colonel 
Murray sailed up to Plattsburgh with two sloops, 
three gunboats, and a number of longboats manned 
by 1,400 men. Making an unopposed landing, 
they destroyed the barracks and all other public 
property there, and carried away eight thousand 
dollars' worth of private property. During this 
attack General Wade Hampton, recently appointed 
to the command of this department, remained inert 
at Burlington, only twenty miles distant, with 4,000 
troops, although he had twenty-four hours' notice 
of the expected attack, and received repeated calls 
for aid. 

Two gunboats and the longboats then proceeded 
to Swanton, where they destro} r ed some old bar- 
racks and plundered several citizens, and committed 
similar piratical depredations at several points on 
the western shore. 

The two sloops, late Growler and Eagle, now 
sailed under changed names and colors up the lake, 
accompanied by the other gunboats, and destroyed 
several boats engaged in transporting stores. They 
appeared before Burlington, firing a few shots upon 
the town, which were briskly returned by the bat- 
teries. That night they cut out four sloops laden 
with provisions, and burnt another with a cargo of 
salt, and then bore away northward with their booty. 

In September Macdonough sailed down the lake 
with his little fleet and offered battle, but the Brit- 
ish declined and sailed into the Richelieu, whither 
the brave commodore would not follow to be en- 



276 VERMONT. 

trapped as Lieutenant Smith had been. Again, in 
December, when some of the British vessels came 
up to Rouse's Point on a burning and plundering 
expedition, Macdonough endeavored to get within 
striking distance near Point au Fer, but they re- 
fused to engage, and retired to the same safe re- 
treat. 

In October Colonel Isaac Clark, a Yermonter 
and a veteran of the Revolution, made a brilliant 
dash with a detachment of his regiment, the 11th, 
on a British post at St. Armand, on Missisquoi 
Bay. With 102 riflemen he surprised the enemy, 
killing nine, wounding fourteen, and taking 101 
prisoners in an engagement that lasted only ten 
minutes. In November he again visited St. Ar- 
mand, securing fifty head of cattle which had been 
taken there from the Vermont side of the line. A 
Canadian journal was " glad to give the Devil his 
due," and credited him with having " behaved very 
honorably in this affair." 

During the autumn General Wade Hampton 
amused himself and tired his troops with abortive 
meanderings along the line. In October he en- 
tered Canada, and made an attack on a small body 
of British troops, accomplishing nothing but the 
loss to himself of thirty-five men, killed and 
wounded. He refused to cooperate with General 
Wilkinson, who was advancing from Sackett's Har- 
bor down the St. Lawrence, and desired Hamp- 
ton to join him at St. Regis, the object being the 
capture of Montreal. Hampton's inglorious cam- 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 211 

paign ended with his retiring to winter quarters 
at Plattsburgh. Many Vermonters served under 
him, their hardships unrewarded by victory, or even 
vigorous endeavor to gain it. 

Wilkinson's movements were as abortive, though 
when his flotilla reached the head of the Long 
Sault, a brigade of his army engaged a force of the 
enemy at Chrysler's Farm. The raw and undisci- 
plined American troops, of whom the Vermonters 
in a battalion of the 11th formed a part, distin- 
guished themselves by frequently repulsing some 
of the tried veterans of the English army. Neither 
side gained a victory, but the British remained in 
possession of the field, though they suffered the 
heavier loss in killed and wounded, and the flotilla 
continued its inconsequential voyage. Arriving 
at St. Regis, and learning that Hampton would 
not cooperate with him, Wilkinson abandoned the 
movement against Montreal, and went into winter 
quarters at French Mills. 

On the last of December a British force made a 
succcessful raid on a depot of supplies at Derby, 
Vermont, destroying barracks and storehouses, and 
carrying away a considerable quantity of stores. 
In consequence of this, and some threatening dem- 
onstration on the Richelieu, Wilkinson removed 
his quarters to Lake Champlain. While this pre- 
tense was made of undertaking a conquest which 
mijrht result in the annexation of Canada to the 
United States, and a consequent increase of power 
in the north, a result desired neither by the secre- 



278 VERMONT. 

tary of war nor the generals here employed, hot 
and earnest blows were falling on the enemy at the 
westward. On Lake Erie Perry had overcome the 
British, and was master of that inland sea. Har- 
rison had vanquished the English and their Indian 
allies at the battle of the Thames, and Michigan 
was regained. 

Meantime a storm of abuse raged between the 
political parties of Vermont, each hurling at the 
other the hard names of Tories, traitors, and ene- 
mies of their country, and neighborhoods and fami- 
lies were divided in the bitter contest. The Feder- 
alist strength was so far increased by the growing 
unpopularity of the war, and the irksomeness of 
the restrictions on trade, that the party succeeded 
at the election of 1813 in placing Martin Chit- 
tenden, son of the old governor, at the head of the 
state government. 

One of his earliest acts was to recall by procla- 
mation a brigade of the state militia in service at 
Plattsburgh. In this the governor acted on the 
ground that it was unconstitutional to call the 
militia beyond the limits of the State without per- 
mission from the governor, their commander-in- 
chief, a view of the case supported by the Supreme 
Court of Massachusetts, and adhered to by most of 
the other New England States ; and, further, that 
the militia of Vermont were more needed for the 
defense of their own State than for that of its 
stronger sister commonwealth. A number of the 
Vermont officers returned a protest whose vigor was 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 279 

weakened by its insolence. They refused to obey 
the proclamation of their captain-general, but nev- 
erthless the rank and file, tired of inaction, less 
irksome to the officers, returned to their homes be- 
fore the term of enlistment expired, and the affair 
passed without further notice. 

The muskrats had long been housed in their 
lodges on the frozen marshes, and all waterfowl 
but the loons and mergansers had flown southward, 
when Macdonough withdrew his fleet from the 
stormy lake into Otter Creek, whose current was 
already thick with drifting anchor-ice. The craft 
were moored in a reach of the river known as the 
Button woods, three fourths of a mile above Dead 
Creek, the ice closed around them, and they slept 
inert until the return of spring. 

The sap had scarcely begun to swell the forest 
buds when Vergennes, eight miles upstream, where 
the first fall bars navigation, was astir with the 
building of other craft for the Champlain navy. A 
throng of ship carpenters were busy on the narrow 
flat by the waterside ; the woods were noisy with 
the thud of axes, the crash of falling trees, and the 
bawling of teamsters ; and the two furnaces were in 
full blast casting cannon-shot for the fleet. Forty 
days after the great oak which formed the keel of 
the Saratoga had fallen from its stump, the vessel 
was afloat and ready for its guns. Several gun- 
boats were also built there, and early in May, their 
sappy timbers yet reeking with woodsy odors, the 
new craft dropped down the river to join the fleet 
at the Buttonwrods. 



280 VERMONT. 

The right bank of Otter Creek at its mouth is a 
rock-ribbed promontory, connected with the main- 
land, except at high water, by a narrow neck of low, 
alluvial soil. On the lake ward side of the point 
earthworks were thrown up, and mounted with 
several pieces of artillery, for the defense of the en- 
trance against an expected attempt of the enemy 
to destroy the American fleet. The militia of Ad- 
dison, Chittenden, and Franklin counties were put 
in readiness to turn out on the firing of signal 
guns, and a small detachment was posted at Haw- 
ley's Farm, near the mouth of Little Otter, to watch 
the approach of the army. About 1,000 of the 
militia were stationed at Yergennes. All the night 
of the 13th the officers of the neighboring towns 
were running bullets at their treasurer's, where 
powder and lead were stored for the militia at 
Yergennes. 

On the 10th of May the British squadron passed 
Cumberland Head, and on the 14th eight of the 
galleys and a bomb-ketch appeared off the mouth 
of Great Otter, while a brig, four sloops, and sev- 
eral galleys were two miles to the northward. The 
galleys opened a fire on the battery, which was 
bravely defended by Captain Thornton of the ar- 
tillery and Lieutenant Cassin of the navy. The 
rapid discharge of the guns, repeated in echoes 
from the rugged steeps of Split Rock Mountain 
till it became a continuous roar, for a time greatly 
alarmed the inhabitants of the adjacent country, 
but the assailants were beaten off after receiving 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 281 

considerable injury, while they inflicted on the de- 
fenders only the dismounting of one gun, and the 
slight wounding of two men. The British fleet 
sailed northward, and next day Macdonough's flo- 
tilla issued forth ready for battle, and sailed north- 
ward to Cumberland Bay. 

The importance of this action has not had proper 
recognition. It is briefly, if at all, mentioned by 
historians. If the defense of the little battery 
which now bears the name of Fort Cassin, in honor 
of Macdonough's brave lieutenant, had been less 
gallant and successful, our fleet would in all proba- 
bility have been destroyed before it could strike the 
blow which gained its commander imperishable 
renown. The British keenly felt the lost oppor- 
tunity, for Captain Pring was charged by his supe- 
riors with cowardice and disobedience of orders 
in not having taken the battery and blockaded the 
American squadron. 

The invasion of Canada again was the plan of 
the campaign for 1814. The two western armies 
were to move against the enemy on the upper lakes 
and at the Niagara frontier, while General Izard 
was to cut the communication on the St. Lawrence 
between Kingston and Montreal. The Vermont- 
ers of the 30th and 31st regiments, and part of 
the 11th, with the militia and volunteers raised in 
the vicinity of Lake Champlain were employed 
in this army, while the remainder of the 11th were 
in service on the Niagara frontier. 

The contraband trade was not entirely sup- 



282 VERMONT. 

pressed all along the border. Many cunning de- 
vices were resorted to by the smugglers. One of 
the most notable was the fitting out of a pretended 
privateer by one John Banker of New York. Ob- 
taining letters of marque from the collector of that 
city, he began cruising on the lake in a little vessel 
named the Lark, of less than one ton burden, and 
armed with three muskets. After evincing her 
warlike character by firing on the Essex ferry-boat, 
she ran down the lake to Rouse's Point, and there 
lay in wait for prizes. A barge heavily laden with 
merchandise presently fell a prey to the bold priva- 
teer; her cargo was conveyed to New York by Bank- 
er's confederate, and delivered to the owners. The 
government officials soon learned that the goods 
had not been received at the United States store- 
house, the Lark was seized, and the brief career of 
privateering on these waters came to an end. In 
March, 1814, Colonel Clark of the 11th, with 1,100 
Green Mountain Boys, took possession of the fron- 
tier from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut, 
establishing his headquarters at Missisquoi Bay, 
harassing the enemy as opportunity offered, and 
making vigilant efforts for the suppression of smug- 
gling. After successfully accomplishing this, he 
joined Wilkinson at the La Colle. 

In the brave but unsuccessful attack on the La 
Colle Mill, upon whose strong stone walls our two 
light pieces of artillery made no impression, Clark 
led the 600 Green Mountain Boys who composed 
the advance. Their loss was eleven of the thirteen 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 283 

killed, and one third of the 128 wounded. The 
Vermonters of this army had no further opportu- 
nity to distinguish themselves until September, but 
those of the 11th regiment gallantly bore their part 
in the bloody battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, 
and Fort Erie. In the first, General Scott called 
on the 11th to charge upon the enemy, who had 
declared that the Americans " could not stand 
cold iron," and the regiment dashed impetuously 
upon the scarlet line and swept it back with their 
bayonets. 

A formidable British army, 15,000 strong, largely 
composed of veterans, .flushed with their European 
victories, was near the Richelieu, under command 
of Sir George Prevost, and their fleet had been 
strengthened by additional vessels. 

Though there were at the time but about 6,000 
troops fit for duty, to oppose the enemy's advance 
in this quarter, early in August the secretary of 
war ordered General Izard to march with 4,000 
of them to the Niagara frontier. Protesting 
against an order which would leave the Champlain 
region so defenseless, Izard set forth from Cham- 
plain and Chazy with his army on the 29th, halt- 
ing two days at Lake George in the hope that the 
order might yet be revoked. 

On the 30th the British general Brisbane occu- 
pied Champlain, and four days later Sir George 
Prevost arrived there with his whole force ; while 
Plattsburgh was held by the insignificant but un- 
daunted army of the Americans under General 



284 VERMONT. 

Macomb, abandoned to its fate by a government 
that did not desire the conquest of Canada. The 
three forts and block-house were strengthened, and 
the general made an urgent call on New York and 
Vermont for reinforcements, which was promptly 
responded to, while small parties were sent out to 
retard, as much as possible, the advance of the 
enemy. But the skirmishers were swept back by 
the overwhelming strength of the invading army, 
and retired across the Saranac, destroying the 
bridges behind them. 

Governor Chittenden did not consider himself 
authorized to order the militia into service outside 
the State, but called for volunteers. There was a 
quick response. Veterans of the Revolution and 
their grandsons, exempt by age and youth from 
service, as well as the middle-aged, each with the 
evergreen badge of his State in his hat, turned 
out. With the old smooth-bores and rifles that had 
belched buckshot and bullet at Hubbardton and 
Bennington, and with muskets obtained from the 
town armories, they flocked towards the scene of 
impending battle, on foot, in wagons, singly, in 
squads, and by companies, crossing the lake at the 
most convenient points, of which Burlington was 
the principal one. General Strong was put in com- 
mand of the Vermont volunteers. On the 10th 
of September he reported 1,812 at Plattsburgh, 
and on the 11th 2,500, while only 700 of the 
New York militia had arrived. 

When the morning of the 11th of September 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 285 

broke, the American army stood at bay on the south 
bank of the Saranac. Fifteen hundred regulars 
and about 3,200 hastily collected militia and vol- 
unteers, confronted by 14,000 of the best troops of 
Great Britain, proudly wearing the laurels won in 
the Napoleonic wars, and confident of victory over 
the despised foe that now opposed them. 

Early that morning the British fleet collected at 
Isle La Motte weighed anchor, and sailed south- 
ward. At eight o'clock it rounded Cumberland 
Head, and with sails gleaming in the sunlight, 
swept down toward the American fleet like a white 
cloud drifting across the blue lake. 

Macdonough's vessels were anchored in a line 
extending north from Crab Island and parallel 
with the west shore, the Eagle, Captain Henly, 
at the head of the line, next the Saratoga, Com- 
modore Macdonough's flagship ; the schooner Ti- 
conderoga next ; and at the south end of the line 
the sloop Preble, so close to Crab Island Shoal as 
to prevent the enemy from turning that end of the 
line. Forty rods in the rear of this line lay ten 
gunboats, kept in position by their sweeps ; two 
north and in rear of the Eagle, the others oppo- 
site the intervals between the larger craft. 

At nine o'clock the hostile fleet came to anchor 
in a line about three hundred yards from ours, 
Captain Downie's flagship, the Confiance, opposed 
to the Saratoga ; his brig Linnet to the Eagle ; 
his twelve galleys to our schooner, sloop, and a di- 
vision of galleys ; while one of the sloops taken 



286 VERMONT. 

from us the year before assisted the Confiance and 
Linnet, the other the enemy's galleys. The British 
fleet had 95 guns, and 1,050 men ; the American, 
86 guns, and 820 men. In such position of the 
fleets the action began. 

The first broadside of the Confiance killed and 
disabled forty of the Saratoga's crew. The head 
of one of his men, cut off by a cannon-shot, struck 
Macdonough in the breast and knocked him into 
the scuppers. A shot upset a coop and released a 
cock, which flew into the shrouds and crowed lustily, 
and the crew, cheering this augury of victory, 
served the guns with increased ardor. The Eagle, 
unable to bring her guns to bear, cut her cable and 
took a position between the Saratoga and the Ticon- 
deroga, where she greatly annoyed the enemy, but 
left the flagship exposed to a galling fire from the 
British brig. Nearly all the Saratoga's starboard 
guns were dismounted, and Macdonough winded 
her, bringing her port guns to bear upon the Con- 
fiance, which ship attempted the same manoeuvre, 
but failed. After receiving a few broadsides, her 
gallant commander dead, half her men killed and 
wounded, with one hundred and five shots in her 
hull, her rigging in tatters on the shattered masts, 
the British flagship struck her colors. 

The guns of the Saratoga were now turned on 
the Linnet, and in fifteen minutes she surrendered, 
as the Chub, crippled by the Eagle's broadsides 
and with a loss of half her men, had done some 
time before. 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 287 

The Finch, driven from her position by the Ti- 
conderoga, drifted upon Crab Island Shoals, where, 
receiving the fire of a battery on the island manned 
by invalids, she struck and was taken possession of 
by them. The galleys remaining afloat made off. 
Our galleys were signaled to pursue, but were all 
in a sinking condition, unable to follow, and, the 
other vessels being crippled past making sail, the 
galleys escaped. 

The havoc wrought in this conflict proves it to 
have been one of the hottest naval battles ever 
fought. A British sailor who was at Trafalgar 
declared that battle as " but a flea-bite to this." 
The British lost in killed and wounded one fifth of 
their men, the commander of the fleet, and several 
of his officers ; the Americans, one eighth of their 
men. Among the killed were Lieutenant Stans- 
bury of the Ticonderoga, and Lieutenant Gamble 
of the Saratoga. The Saratoga was twice set on 
fire by the enemy's hot shot, and received fifty-five 
shots in her hull. At the close of the action, not 
a mast was left in either squadron on which a sail 
could be hoisted. 1 

The result, so glorious to the Americans, was 
due to the superior rapidity and accuracy of their 
fire. 

For more than two hours the unremitting thun- 
der-peal of the battle had rolled up the Champlain 
valley to thousands who listened in alternating 
hope and fear. For a time, none but the combat- 
1 Macdonough's report, Palmer's Lake Champlain. 



288 VERMONT. 

ants and immediate spectators knew how the fight 
had gone, till the lifting smoke revealed to the 
anxious watchers on ' the eastern shore the stars 
and stripes alone floating above the shattered ships ; 
then horsemen rode in hot speed north, east, and 
south, bearing the glad tidings of victory. 

The opening of the naval fight was the signal 
for the attack of the British land force. A furious 
fire began from all the batteries. At two bridges, 
and at a ford above Plattsburgh, its strength was 
exerted in attempts to cross the Saranac. The 
attacks at the bridges were repulsed by the Ameri- 
can regulars, firing from breastworks formed of 
planks of the bridges. At the ford, the enemy 
were met by the volunteers and militia. A con- 
siderable number succeeded in crossing the river, 
but an officer riding up with news of the naval 
victory, the citizen soldiers set upon the enemy 
in a furious assault, and with cheers drove them 
back. 

A fire was kept up from the English batteries 
until sundown, but when the evening, murky with 
the cloud of battle, darkened into the starless 
gloom of night, the British host began a precipi- 
tate retreat, abandoning vast quantities of stores 
and munitions, and leaving their killed and wounded 
to the care of the victors. They had lost in killed, 
wounded, prisoners, and deserters 2,500 ; the Ameri- 
cans, 119. But bitterest of all to the vanquished 
invaders was the thought that they who had over- 
come the armies of Napoleon were now beaten 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 289 

back by an " insignificant rabble " of Yankee yeo- 
men. 

The retreat had been for some honrs in progress 
before it was discovered, and a pursuit begun, 
which, after the capture of some prisoners, and 
covering the escape of a number of deserters, was 
stopped at Chazy by the setting in of a drenching 
rainstorm. 

Three days later, their present service being no 
longer necessary, the Vermont volunteers were dis- 
missed by General Macomb, with thanks of warm 
commendation for their ready response to his call, 
and the undaunted spirit with which they had met 
the enemy. 

Through General Strong they received the 
thanks of Governor Chittenden, and, later, the 
thanks of the general government " to the brave 
and patriotic citizens of the State for their prompt 
succor and gallant conduct in the late critical state 
of the frontier." 

Their promptness was indeed commendable, for 
they had rallied to Macomb's aid, and the battle 
was fought, four days before the government at 
Washington had issued its tardy call for their 
assistance. The State of New York presented to 
General "Strong an elegant sword in testimony of 
" his services and those of his brave mountaineers 
at the battle of Pittsburgh," and the two States 
united in making a gift to Macdonough of a tract 
of land on Cumberland Head lying in full view of 
the scene of his brilliant victory. 



290 VERMONT. 

The army of Sir George Prevost was beaten 
back to Canada, but it was still powerful, and the 
danger of another invasion was imminent. Gov- 
ernor Chittenden issued another proclamation, une- 
quivocal in its expressions of patriotism, enjoining 
upon all officers of the militia to hold their men in 
readiness to meet any invasion, and calling on all 
exempts capable of bearing arms to equip them- 
selves and unite with the enrolled militia when oc- 
casion demanded. 

As there was nothing to apprehend from any 
naval force which could be put afloat this season 
by the British, Macdonough requested that he 
might be employed on the seaboard under Com- 
modore Decatur. On the approach of winter, the 
fleet was withdrawn to Fiddler's Elbow, near 
Whitehall, never again to be called forth to bat- 
tle. There, where the unheeding keels of com- 
merce pass to and fro above them, the once hostile 
hulks of ship and brig, schooner and galley, lie 
beneath the pulse of waves in an unbroken quietude 
of peace. 

There were rumors of a projected winter inva- 
sion from Canada to destroy the flotilla while 
powerless in the grip of the ice. It was reported 
that an immense artillery train of guns .mounted 
on sledges w r as preparing; that a multitude of 
sleighs and teams for the transportation of troops, 
with thousands of buffalo robes for their warmth, 
had been engaged and bought. Vermont did not 
delay preparation for such an attack. 



VERMONT IN THE WAR OF 1812. 291 

The rancor of politics among her people had 
given place to a nobler spirit of patriotism, and, 
without distinction of parties, all good men stood 
forth in defense of their country, and those who 
had opposed the war were now as zealous as its 
advocates in prosecuting it to an honorable close. 

Major-General Strong issued a general order to 
the militia to be ready for duty at any moment, 
requested the exempts to aid them, and urged the 
selectmen to make into cartridges the ammunition 
with which the towns were supplied, and place 
them at convenient points for distribution. All 
responded promptly, and, moreover, matrons and 
maids diligently plied their knitting-needles in the 
long winter evenings to make socks and mittens 
for the brave men who would need them in the 
bitter weather of such a campaign. 

But, instead of the expected invasion, came the 
good news of the treaty of peace, signed at Ghent 
on the twenty-fourth day of December. 

Peace was welcome to the nation, though the 
treaty was silent concerning the professed causes 
of the declaration of war, and the only compen- 
sation for the losses and burdens entailed by the 
conflict, so wretchedly conducted by our govern- 
ment, was the glory of the victories gained by our 
little navy and undisciplined troops over England's 
invincible warships and armies of veterans. 



CHAPTER XX. 

OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 

Peace was indeed welcome to a people so long 
deprived of an accessible market as had been the 
inhabitants of Vermont. 

The potash fires were relighted ; the lumber- 
man's axe was busy again in the bloodless warfare 
against the giant pines ; new acres of virgin soil 
were laid bare to the sun, and added to the broad- 
ening fields of tilth. White-winged sloops and 
schooners, and unwieldy rafts, flocked through the 
reopened gate of the country, and the clumsy 
Durham boat spread its square sail to the favor- 
ing north wind, and once more appeared on the 
broad lake where it had so long been a stranger. 
The shores were no longer astir with military 
preparations, but with the bustle of awakened 
traffic ; soldiers had again become citizens ; the 
ravages of war had scarcely touched the borders 
of the State, and in a few months there remained 
hardly a trace of its recent existence. 

There had not been, nor was there for years 
after this period, a marked change in the social 
conditions of the people, for the old fraternal bonds 
of interdependence still held pioneer to pioneer 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 293 

almost as closely as in the days when the strong 
hand was more helpful than the long purse. 

Class distinctions were marked vaguely, if at all, 
and there was no aristocracy of idleness, for it was 
held that idleness was disgraceful. The farmer 
who owned five hundred acres worked as early and 
as late as he who owned but fifty, and led his half- 
score of mowers to the onslaught of herdsgrass and 
redtop with a ringing challenge of whetstone on 
scythe, and was proud of his son if the youngster 
" cut him out of his swathe." 

The matron taught her daughters and maids 
how to spin and weave flax and wool. The beat 
of the little wheel, the hum of the great wheel, 
the ponderous thud of the loom, were household 
voices in every Vermont homestead, whether it 
was the old log-house that the forest had first 
given place to, or its more pretentious framed and 
boarded successor. All the women-folk knitted 
stockings and mittens while they rested or visited, 
the click of the needles accompanied by the chirp 
of the cricket and the buzz of gossip. 

For workday and holiday, the household was 
clad in homespun from head to foot, save what 
the hatter furnished for the first and the traveling 
cobbler for the last. 

Once a year the latter was a welcome visitor of 
every homestead in his beat, bringing to it all the 
gossip for the women-folk, all the weighty news 
for the men, and all the bear stories for the chil- 
dren which he had gathered in a twelve months' 



294 VERMONT. 

" whipping of the cat," as his itinerant craft was 
termed. These he dispensed while, by the light 
of the wide fireplace, he mended old foot-gear or 
fashioned new, that fitted and tortured alike either 
foot whereon it was drawn on alternate days. 

The old custom of making "bees," instituted 
when neighborly help was a necessity, was con- 
tinued when it was no longer needed, for the sake 
of the merry-makings which such gatherings af- 
forded. There were yet logging-bees for the piling 
of logs in a clearing, and raising-bees when a new 
house or barn was put up ; drawing-bees when one 
was to be moved to a new site, with all the ox- 
teams of half a township ; and bees when a sick or 
short-handed neighbor's season-belated crops needed 
harvesting. 

When the corn was ripe came the husking-bee, 
in which old and young of both sexes took part, 
their jolly labor lighted in the open field by the 
hunter's moon or a great bonfire, around which 
the shocks were ranged like a circle of wigwams; 
or, if in the barn, by the rays sprinkled from lan- 
terns of punched tin. When the work was done, 
the company feasted on pumpkin pie, doughnuts, 
and cider. Then the barn floor was cleared of the 
litter of husks, the fiddler mounted the scaffold, 
and made the gloom of the roof -peak ring with 
merry strains, to which twoscore solidly clad feet 
threshed out time in " country dance " and " French 
four." 

The quilting party, in its first laborious stage, 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 295 

was participated in only by the womenkind ; but, 
when that was passed, the menfolk were called in 
to assist in the ceremony of " shaking the quilt," 
and in the performance of this the fiddler was 
as necessary as in the closing rites of the husk- 
ing-bee. 

When the first touch of spring stirred the sap 
of the maples, sugar-making began, a labor spiced 
with a woodsy flavor of camp life and small adven- 
ture. The tapping was done with a gouge ; the sap 
dripped from spouts of sumach stems into rough- 
hewn troughs, from which it was gathered in buck- 
ets borne on a neck-yoke, the bearer making the 
rounds on snowshoes, and depositing the gathered 
sap in a big " store trough " set close to the boiling- 
place. This was an open fire, generously fed with 
four-foot wood, and facing an open-fronted shanty 
that sheltered the sugar-maker from rain and " sugar 
snow," while he plied his daily and nightly labor, 
now with the returning crow and the snickering 
squirrel for companions, now the unseen owl and 
fox, making known their presence with storm-bod- 
ing hoot and husky bark. The sap-boiling was 
done in the great potash kettle that in other seasons 
seethed with pungent lye, but now, swung on a huge 
log crane, sweetened the odors of the woods with 
sugar-scented vapor. Many families saw no sweet- 
ening, from one end of the year to the other, but 
maple sugar and syrup, the honey from their few 
hives, or the uncertain spoil of the bee-hunter. All 
the young folks of a neighborhood were invited to 



296 VERMONT. 

the " sugaring off," and camp after camp in turn, 
during the season of melting snow and the return 
of bluebird and robin, rung with the chatter and 
laughter of a merry party that was as boisterous 
over the sugar feast as the blackbirds that swung 
on the maple-tops above them rejoicing over the 
return of spring. 

In the long evenings of late autumn and early 
winter, there were apple or paring bees, to which 
young folk and frolicsome elder folk came and 
lent a hand in paring, coring, and stringing to 
dry, for next summer's use, the sour fruit of the 
ungrafted orchards, and, when the work was done, 
to lend more nimble feet to romping games and 
dances, that were kept up till the tallow dips paled 
with the stars in the dawn, and daylight surprised 
the coatless beaux and buxom belles, all clad in 
honest homespun. 

Very naturally, weddings often came of these 
merry-makings, and were celebrated with as little 
ostentation and as much hearty good fellowship. 
The welcome guests brought no costly and useless 
presents for display ; there were no gifts but the 
bride's outfit of home-made beds, homespun and 
hand-woven sheets, table-cloths, and towels given 
by parents and nearest relations. The young 
couple did not parade the awkwardness of their 
newly assumed relations in a wedding journey, but 
began the honeymoon in their new home, and spent 
it much as their lives were to be spent, taking up 
at once the burden that was not likely to grow 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 297 

lighter with the happiness that might increase. 
But if the burden became heavy, and the light of 
love faded, there was seldom separation or divorce. 
If there were more sons and daughters than could 
be employed at home, they hired out in families not 
s ) favored without loss of caste or sense of degra- 
dation in such honest service. They often married 
into the family of the employer, and their position 
was little changed by the new relation. 

For many years the wheat crop in Vermont con- 
tinued certain and abundant, and formed a part of 
almost every farmer's income, as well as the princi- 
pal part of his breadstuff, for the pioneer's Johnny- 
cake had fallen into disrepute among his thrifty 
descendants, who held it more honorable to eat 
poor wheat-bread than good Johnny-cake, and de- 
spised the poor wretch who ate buckwheat. It is 
quite possible that the first demarcation between 
the aristocrats and the plebeians of Vermont was 
drawn along this food line. 

Wool-growing was fostered in the infancy of the 
State by public acts, and almost every farmer was 
more or less a shepherd. A marked improvement 
in the fineness and weight of the fleeces began with 
the introduction of the Spanish merinos in 1809. 1 
By the judicious breeding by a few intelligent Ver- 
mont farmers, the Spanish sheep were brought to 

1 Chancellor Livingston brought merinos to this country as early 
as 1802. In 1809 William Jarris, our consul at Lishon, brought a 
considerable number of merinos to Vermont, and from his famors 
Weathersiield flocks most of the Vermont merinos are descended. 



298 VERMONT. 

a degree of perfection which they had never at- 
tained in their European home, and Vermont me- 
rinos gained a world-wide reputation that still en- 
dures ; while the wool product of the State, once so 
famous for it that Sheffield cutlers stamped their 
best shears " The True Vermonter," has become 
almost insignificant, compared with that of states 
and countries whose flocks yearly renew their impov- 
erished blood with fresh draughts from Vermont 
stock. Shearing-time was the great festival of the 
year. The shearers, many of whom were often the 
flock-owner's well-to-do neighbors, were treated 
more as guests than as laborers, and the best the 
house afforded was set before them. The great 
barn's empty bays and scaffolds resounded with the 
busy click of incessant shears, the jokes, songs, and 
laughter of the merry shearers, the bleating of the 
ewes and lambs, and the twitter of disturbed swal- 
lows, while the sunlight, shot through crack and 
knot-hole, swung slowly around the dusty interior 
in sheets and bars of gold that dialed the hours 
from morning till evening. 

A distinctive breed of horses originated in Ver- 
mont, and the State became almost as famous for 
its Morgan horses as for its sheep. But, though 
Vermont horses are still of good repute, this noted 
strain, the result of a chance admixture of the blood 
of the English thoroughbred and the tough little 
Canadian horse, has been improved into extinction 
of its most valued traits. 

The laborious life of the farmer had an occa- 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 299 

sional break in days of fishing in lulls of the 
spring's work, and between that and haymaking ; of 
hunting when the* crops were housed, and the splen- 
dor of the autumnal woods was fading to sombre 
monotony of gray, or when woods and fields were 
white with the snows of early winter. 

The clear mountain ponds and streams were pop- 
ulous with trout, the lakes and rivers with pike, 
pickerel, and the varieties of perch and bass ; and 
in May and June the salmon, fresh run from the 
sea and lusty with its bounteous fare, swarmed 
up the Connecticut and the tributaries of Lake 
Champlain. 

The sonorous call of the moose echoed now only 
in the gloom of the northeastern wilderness, but the 
deer still homed in the mountains, often coming 
down to feed with domestic cattle in the hillside 
pastures. The ruffed grouse strutted and drummed 
in every wood, copse, and cobble. Every spring, 
great flights of wild pigeons clouded the sky, as 
they flocked to their summer encampment ; and in 
autumn, such innumerable hordes of wild fowl 
crowded the marshes that the roar of their startled 
simultaneous uprising was like dull thunder. These 
the farmer hunted in his stealthy Indian way, and 
after New England fashion, — the fox on foot, with 
hound and gun ; and so, too, the raccoon that pil- 
laged his cornfields when the ears were in the milk. 
When a wolf came down from the mountain fast- 
nesses, or crossed the frozen lake from the Adiron- 
dack wilds, to ravage the folds, every arms-bearer 



300 VERMONT. 

turned hunter. The marauder was surrounded in 
the wood where he had made his latest lair ; the cir- 
cle, bristling with guns, slowly closed in upon him ; 
and as he dashed wildly around it in search of some 
loophole of escape, he fell to rifle-ball or charge of 
buckshot, if he did not break through the line at a 
point weakly guarded by a timid or flurried hunter. 
His death was celebrated at the nearest store or 
tavern with a feast of crackers and cheese, — a 
droughty banquet, moistened with copious draughts 
of cider, beer, or more potent liquors, and the bounty 
paid the reckoning. The bounty, and the value of 
the skins and grease of bears were added incen- 
tives to the taking off of these pests, which was fre- 
quently accomplished by trap and spring-gun. 

Many farmers made a considerable addition to 
their income by trapping the fur-bearers, for though 
the beaver had been driven from all but the wildest 
streams, and the otter was an infrequent visitor of 
his old haunts, their little cousins, the muskrat and 
mink, held their own in force on every stream and 
marsh ; and the greater and lesser martins, known 
to their trappers as fisher and sable, still found 
home and range on the unshorn mountains. A few 
men yet followed for their livelihood the hunter's 
and trapper's life of laziness and hardship, for the 
most part unthrifty, and poor in everything but 
shiftless contentment and the wisdom of woodcraft. 
There were exceptions in this class : at least one 
mighty hunter laid the foundation of a fortune 
when he set his traps. When the trapping season 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 301 

was ended, he sold his peltry in Montreal, bought 
goods there, and peddled them through his State 
till the falling leaves again called him to the woods. 
He gained wealth and a seat in Congress, but nei- 
ther is likely to be the reward of one who now fol- 
lows such a vocation in Vermont. 

The annual election of legislators, justices, judges, 
state officers, and members of Congress, which falls 
on the first Tuesday of September, had then other 
than political excitement to enliven the day in the 
wrestling matches and feats of strength that were in- 
terludes of the balloting. In one instance the name 
of a town was decided by the result of a wrestling 
match on election day. One figure constant at the 
elections of the first half of this century, and by far 
the most attractive one to the unfledged voters who 
never failed in attendance, was he who dispensed, 
from his booth or stand, pies, cakes, crackers, 
cheese, and spruce beer to the hungry and thirsty. 
When the result of the election was announced, the 
successful candidate for representative bought out 
the remaining stock of the victualer, and invited 
his friends to help themselves, which they did with 
little ceremony. Nothing less than a reception 
given at the house of the representative-elect will 
satisfy the mixed multitude in these progressive 
times. The once familiar booth and its occupant 
have drifted into the past with the wrestlers, the 
jumpers, and pullers of the stick. 

Gradually the primitive ways of life, the earliest 
industries, and the ruder methods of labor gave 



302 VERMONT. 

way to more luxurious living, new industries, and 
labor-saving machinery. 

The log-house, that was reared amid its brother- 
hood of stumps, decayed with them, and was super- 
seded by a more pretentious frame-house, whose 
best apartment, known as the " square room," came 
to know the luxury of a rag carpet, or at least a 
painted floor, that heretofore had been only sanded, 
and a Franklin stove, a meagre apology for the 
generous breadth of the great fireplace whose place 
it took. There was yet a fireplace in the kitchen, 
down whose wide-throated chimney the stars might 
shine upon the seething samp-pot swinging on the 
trammel and the bake-kettle embedded and cov- 
ered in embers. Great joints of meat were roasted 
before it on the spit, biscuits baked in a tin oven, 
and Johnny-cakes tilted on oaken boards. Around 
this glowing centre the family gathered in the 
evening, the always busy womenfolk sewing, knit- 
ting, and carding wool ; the men fashioning axe- 
helves and ox-bows, the children popping corn on 
a hot shovel, or conning their next day's lessons; 
while all listened to the grandsire's stories of war 
and pioneer life, or to the schoolmaster's reading of 
some book seasoned with age, or of the latest news, 
fresh from the pages of a paper only a fortnight 
old. The fire gave better light for reading and 
work than the tallow dips, to whose manufacture of 
a year's supply one day was devoted, marked in the 
calendar by greasy discomfort. For the illumina- 
tion of the square room on grand occasions, there 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 303 

were mould candles held in brass sticks, while these 
and the dips were attended by the now obsolete 
snuffers and extinguisher. Close by the kitchen 
fireplace, and part of the massive chimney stack, 
whose foundations filled many cubic yards of the 
cellar, the brick oven held its cavernous place, and 
was heated on baking days with wood specially pre- 
pared for it. Oven and fireplace gave away after 
a time to the sombre but more convenient cook- 
stove, and with them many time-honored utensils 
and modes of cookery fell into disuse. 

Wool-carding machines were erected at conven- 
ient points, and hand-carding made no longer ne- 
cessary. Presently arose factories which performed 
all the work of cloth-making (carding, spinning, 
weaving, and finishing), so that housewife, daughter, 
and hired girl were relieved of all these labors, 
and the use of the spinning-wheel and hand-loom 
became lost arts. When it became cheaper to buy 
linen than to make it, the growing of flax and all 
the labors of its preparation were abandoned by 
the farmer. As wood grew scarcer and more valu- 
able than its ashes, the once universal and impor- 
tant manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was grad- 
ually discontinued ; and as the hemlock forests 
dwindled away, the frequent tannery, where the 
farmers' hides were tanned on shares, fell into dis- 
use and decay. 

Early in this century the dull thunder of the 
forge hammer resounded, and the furnace fire 
glared upon the environing forest, busily working 



304 VERMONT. 

up ore, brought some from the inferior mines of 
Vermont, but for the most part from the iron mines 
of the New York shore. This industry became un- 
profitable many years ago, and one by one the fires 
of forge and furnace went out. With the decline 
of this industry, the charcoal pit and its grimy at- 
tendants became infrequent in the new clearings, 
though for many years later there was a consid- 
erable demand for charcoal by blacksmiths. Of 
these there were many more then than now, for 
the scope of the smith's craft was far broader in 
the days when he forged many of the household 
utensils and farming tools that, except such as have 
gone out of use, are now wholly supplied by the 
hardware dealer. A common appurtenance of the 
smithy, when every farmer used oxen, was the " ox- 
frame," wherein those animals, who in the endur- 
ance of shoeing belie their proverbial patience, 
were hoisted clear of the ground, and their feet 
made fast while the operation was performed. The 
blacksmith's shop was also next in importance, as a 
gossiping place, to the tavern bar-room and the 
store. At the store dry-goods, groceries, and hard- 
ware were dealt out in exchange for butter, cheese, 
dried apples, grain, peltry, and all such barter, and 
generous seating conveniences and potations free 
to all customers invited no end of loungers. 

The merchant's goods were brought to him by 
teams from ports on Lake Champlain and the 
Connecticut, and from Troy, Albany, and Boston, 
whither by the same slow conveyance went the pro- 



OLD-TIME CUSTOMS AND INDUSTRIES. 305 

duct of the farms, — the wool, grain, pork, maple 
sugar, cheese, butter, and all marketable products 
except beef, which was driven on the hoof in great 
droves to a market in Boston and Albany. 

Daily stage - coaches traversed the main thor- 
oughfares, carrying the mails and such travelers as 
went by public conveyance, to whom, journeying to- 
gether day after day, were given great opportunities 
for gossip and acquaintance. There was much jour- 
neying on horseback. Families going on distant 
visits went with their own teams in the farm wagon, 
whose jolting over the rough roads was relieved 
only by the " spring of the axletree" and the splint 
bottoms of the double-armed wagon chairs. They 
often carried their own provisions for the journey, 
to the disgust of the innkeepers, and this was 
known as traveling " tuckanuck," a name and cus- 
tom that savors of Indian origin. 

Such were the means of interstate commerce, 
mail-carriage, and travel until two long-talked-of 
railroad lines were completed in 1849, running 
lengthwise of the State, east and west of the moun- 
tain range. The new and rapid means of trans- 
portation which now brought the State into direct 
communication with the great cities wrought great 
changes in trade, in modes of life, and in social 
traits. 

There was now a demand for many perishable 
products which had previously found only a limited 
home market, and a host of middlemen arose in 
eager competition for the farmer's eggs, poultry, 



806 VERMONT. 

butter, veal calves, potatoes, and fruit, as well as for 
hay, for which until now there had been only a 
local demand. 

The luxuries and fashions of the cities were in 
some degree introduced by the more rapid and 
easy intercourse with the outer world ; for many 
strove to make display beyond their means, to the 
loss of content and comfort. With homespun wear 
and simple ways of life, the old-time social equality 
became less general, and neighborly interdepen- 
dence slackened its generous hold. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND TEMPERANCE. 

Being almost wholly of New England origin, 
the settlers of Vermont and their descendants were 
in the main a religions people, and held to church- 
going when there was no place for public worship 
but the schoolhouse and the barn. In such places 
the members of the poorer and weaker sects held 
their meetings till within the memory of men 
now living. This was particularly the case of the 
Baptists and Methodists, who were viewed with 
slight favor by the predominant Congregational- 
ists. This sect organized the first religious so- 
ciety in Vermont at Bennington in 1762, and first 
erected houses of worship. These structures were 
unpretentious except in size, and for years were 
unprovided with means of warming. When the 
bitter chill of winter pervaded them, the congrega- 
tion kept itself from freezing with thick garments 
and little foot-stoves of sheet-iron ; the minister, 
with the fervor of his exhortations. Folks went to 
church with no display of apparel or equipage. 
Homespun was the wear, till some ambitious wo- 
man aroused the envy of her kind by appearing in 
a gown of calico, or some gay gallant displayed 



308 VERMONT. 

his many-caped drab surtout of foreign cloth. The 
sled or wagon that served for week days on the 
farm was good enough for Sunday use, when its 
jolting was softened with a generous cushioning of 
buffalo robes for such as did not go to church on 
horseback, or on foot across lots. 

Late in summer, after the earlier crops were 
gathered, the Methodists were wont to congregate 
in the woods at camp-meetings. These meetings 
were celebrated with a fervor of religious warmth, 
and whether by day the white tents and enthusias- 
tic worshipers were splashed and sprinkled with 
sunlight shot through the canopy of leaves, or lit 
at night by the lateral glare of the pine-knot 
torches flaring from a score of scaffolds set on the 
tree-trunks, the scene was weird and picturesque 
beyond what the fancy can conjure from the mod- 
ern fashionable camp-meeting, with its trim cot- 
tages and steadily burning lamps and unmoved 
throng, and one can but think that another fire 
than that of the old pine torches burned out with 
them. 

There were few Episcopalians, though the royal 
charters had given them two glebe lots, and two 
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts, and there were so few Roman Catholics that 
no priest of that faith established himself in the 
State till 1833. In parts of the State there were 
many Friends, commonly called Quakers, who, by 
reason of their non-resistant principles, were ex- 
empted from military service. 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 309 

The state grants gave in each town two lots of 
two hundred acres each to the first settled minister 
of the gospel, of whatever persuasion he might be. 
The rental of all these grants, except that of the 
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, now 
goes to the support of public schools, with that of 
a similar grant originally made for that purpose. 

The schoolhouse was one of the earliest recog- 
nized necessities, when the settlement of the State 
was fairly established. The pioneers built the 
schoolhouse of logs, like their dwellings, and its in- 
terior was even ruder than that of those. Rough 
slabs set on legs driven into augur -holes fur- 
nished the seats, and the desks, if there were any, 
were of like fashion. In winter, when the school 
was largest, if indeed it was held at all in the 
busier seasons, a great fireplace diffused its fer- 
vent heat through half the room, while a chill at- 
mosphere pervaded the far corners. Among such 
cheerless surroundings many a Yermonter of the 
old time began his education, which was completed 
when he had learned to read and write and could 
cipher to the " rule o' three." Many of the schol- 
ars trudged miles through snow and storm to 
school, and the master, who always boarded around, 
had his turns of weary plodding with each distant 
dweller. The boy whose home was far away was 
in luck when he got the chance of doing chores 
for his board in some homestead near the school- 
house. Increase of population and of prosperity 
brought better schoolhouses, set in districts of nar- 
rower bounds. 



310 VERMONT. 

As early as 1782, nine years before the admis- 
sion of the State into the Union, provision was 
made by legislative enactment for the division 
of towns into districts, and the establishment and 
support of schools. It directed that trustees for 
the general superintendence of the schools of each 
town should be appointed, and also a prudential 
committee in each district ; and empowered the 
latter to raise half the money needed for the sup- 
port of the schools on the grand list, the other 
half on the polls of the scholars or on the grand 
list, as each district should determine. 

At one time the school fund, derived from the 
rental of lands and from the United States reve- 
nue distributed among the States in 1838, was 
apportioned among the heads of families accord- 
ing to the number of children of school age, with- 
out regard to attendance, or restriction of its use 
to school purposes. This singular application of 
the funds could not have greatly furthered the 
cause of education, though it may have stimulated 
the increase of population, for to the largest fami- 
lies fell the greater share in the distribution of the 
school money. 

In 1827 the legislature provided for the ex- 
amination and licensing of teachers, and for the 
supervision of schools by town committees ; and 
also for a board of state commissioners, to select 
text-books and report upon the educational needs 
of the State. These provisions were repealed six 
years later, and there was no general supervision of 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 311 

schools till 1845, when an act provided for the 
appointment of county and town superintendents, 
but the first office was soon abolished. In 1856 a 
state board of education was created, empowered 
to appoint a secretary, who should devote his whole 
time to the promotion of education. J. S. Adams, 
the first secretary, served eleven years, and by his 
earnest efforts succeeded in awakening the people 
to a livelier interest in the public schools. During 
his service, normal schools were established, for the 
training of teachers ; and graded schools in villages, 
with a high-school department, became a part of 
the school system. 1 

In 1874 a state superintendent was appointed 
in place of the board of education ; while in 1888 
a system of county instead of town supervision 
was introduced, which after an unsatisfactory trial 
was abolished in 1890, and the town superintendent 
was restored. He now has a general charge over 
the schools in his town, but the teachers are licensed 
by a county examiner appointed by the governor 
and state superintendent. 

The common schools are now supported entirely 
at public expense, and are free to every child be-- 
tween the ages of five and twenty, and in all large 
villages there are free high schools, so that it is 
now rare to find a child of ten or twelve years who 
cannot read and write, and a fair education is 
within the reach of the poorest. 

By the act of 1782, already referred to, the 

1 Conant, Geography, History, and Cinil Gov. of Vermont. 



012 VERMONT. 

judges of the county courts were authorized to ap- 
point trustees of county schools in each county, and, 
with the assistance of the justices of the peace, to 
lay a tax for the building of a county schoolhouse 
in each. In most of the townships granted by 
Vermont, one right of land was reserved for the 
support of a grammar school or academy ; but as 
less than one half of the towns were so granted, 
many of the schools derived little aid from this 
source, and in fact the establishment of county 
schools was not generally effected ; and though 
there are many grammar schools and academies 
in the State, few of them are endowed, but depend 
on the tuition fees for their support. The Hut- 
land County grammar school at Castleton was 
established in 1787, and is the oldest chartered 
educational institution in Vermont. This school, 
together with the Orange County and Lamoille 
County grammar schools, became a State Normal 
School in 1867. These three institutions are un- 
der the supervision of the State Superintendent of 
Education, and the State offers to pay the tuition 
of one student from each town, thus encouraging 
the better preparation of teachers for the common 
schools. 1 

The union of the sixteen New Hampshire towns 
with Vermont brought Dartmouth College within 
the limits of the latter State. After the dissolution 
of the union in 1785, Vermont, upon application 
of the president of the college, granted a town- 

1 Conant, Geography, History, and Civil Gov. of Vermont. 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 313 

ship of land to that institution in view of " its im- 
portance to the world at large and this State in 
particular," x and, encouraged by this success, the 
trustees asked for the sequestration to their use of 
the glebe and society lots granted in the New 
Hampshire charters, and of the lands granted by 
Vermont for educational purposes, promising, in 
return, to take charge of the affairs of educa- 
tion in the State. This gave rise to an agita- 
tion of the subject which resulted in the establish- 
ment of the University of Vermont at Burlington, 
for which purpose Ira Allen offered to give, him- 
self, <£4,000. A bill incorporating the university 
was passed in 1791. Three years later land was 
cleared, and a commodious house built for the 
president and the accommodation of a few stu- 
dents. Ten years later the erection of the univer- 
sity building was begun, and so far completed in 
1804 that the first commencement was held in 
that year. During the War of 1812 the building 
was used for the storage of arms, and as quarters 
for the soldiery. President, professors, and stu- 
dents retired before this martial invasion, and col- 
legiate exercises were suspended till the close of 
the war. This building was destroyed by fire in 
1821 and rebuilt in 1825, the corner-stone being 
laid by General Lafayette. The medical depart- 
ment of the university was fully organized in 1822, 
and a course of lectures was kept up for eleven 
years, when they were suspended, but resumed later. 

1 Thompson's Vermont. 



314 VERMONT. 

The department is now flourishing and of acknow- 
ledged importance, and occupies a fine building 
erected especially for its use. Large endowments 
and valuable gifts, made by generous and grate- 
ful sons of the university, have erected handsome 
new buildings, notably the fine library edifice, and 
improved the old to worthy occupancy of the noble 
site. 

Upon the suggestion of Dr. D wight, who visited 
Middlebury during his travels in New England, 
a college charter was obtained of the legislature, 
but all endowment by the State was refused. The 
institution was immediately organized with seven 
students, and held its first commencement in 1802. 
The first building, erected four years before, was 
of wood, but the college now occupies three sub- 
stantial structures of limestone. 

A military academy, under the superintendence 
of Captain Alden Partridge, was established in 
1820 at Norwich. Some years later this was in- 
corporated as Norwich University. It was removed 
to Northfield in 1866. Its distinctive feature is 
the course of instruction in military science and 
civil engineering. It contributed 273 commissioned 
officers to the Mexican and Civil wars, 1 and many, 
especially in the latter war, served their country 
with distinction. 

The first course of medical lectures in Vermont 
was given in Castleton, by Doctors Gridley, Wood- 
ward, and Cazier in 1818, and laid the foundation 
1 Conant, Geography. History, and Civil Gov. of Vermont. 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 315 

of a medical academy at that place, which in 1841 
was incorporated as Castleton Medical College. 
This, and another medical college established at 
Woodstock some years previously, no longer exist. 

The State now gives thirty scholarships to each 
of her three colleges, which pays the tuition and 
room-rent of a student. These appointments are 
made by the state senators, or by the trustees of 
the colleges. Though there is much interest in all 
these higher institutions of learning, as well as in 
the normal schools and academies, many of which 
are prosperous and important, } r et the common 
schools more particularly engage the attention of 
the people and of the successive legislatures, result- 
ing in a comj^lication of school laws scarcely bal- 
anced by the improvement in the school system. 

The early inhabitants of Vermont, though, for 
the most part, they were rough backwoodsmen, 
were imbued with a strong desire for useful and 
instructive reading, and this led to the formation of 
circulating libraries in several towns, almost as 
soon as the settlers had fairly established them- 
selves in their new homes. This was notably the 
case in Montpelier, where a library was begun in 
1794, only seven years after the first pioneer's axe 
broke the shade and solitude of the wilderness. Its 
two hundred volumes were well chosen, being 
histories, biographies, and books of travel and ad- 
venture, while all works of fiction and of a religious 
nature were excluded, the one class being deemed 
of an immoral tendency, the other apt to breed dis- 



316 VERMONT. 

sension in the sparse and interdependent commu- 
nity. 1 In many other towns similar libraries were 
formed; though perhaps not with like restrictions, 
yet, as far as one may judge now by the scattered 
volumes, they were of excellent character. A 
rough corner cupboard in the log-house kitchen, or 
a closet of the " square room," held the treasured 
volumes of gray paper in unadorned but substan- 
tial leather binding. What a treasure they were to 
those isolated settlers, to whom rarely came even a 
newspaper, can scarcely be imagined by us who are 
overwhelmed with the outflow of the modern press. 
It is a pathetic picture to look back upon, of the 
household reading of the one volume by the glare 
of the open fire, spendthrift of warmth and light, 
eldest and youngest member of the family listen- 
ing eagerly to the slow, high-keyed words of the 
reader, while between the pauses was heard the 
long howl of the wolf, or the pitiless roar of the 
winter wind. Yet it is questionable if they were 
not richer with their enforced choice of a few good 
books than we with our embarrassment of riches 
and its bewildering encumberment of dross. In 
1796 an act was passed incorporating the Brad- 
ford Social Library Society, 2 the first corporate 
body of the kind of which there is any record. 

1 History of Montpelier, by Daniel P. Thompson. D. P % Thomp- 
son is best known as the author of The Green Mountain Boys, The 
Ranger, and other tales that picture quite vividly early times in 
Vermont. 

2 Governor and Council, vol. iv. 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 317 

Similar associations in Fairhaven and Rockingham 
were incorporated soon after. 

In recent years several large public libraries 
have been instituted, such as the libraries of St. 
Johnsbury, St. Albans, Rutland, and Brattleboro, 
the Norman Williams Library at Woodstock, the 
Fletcher Free Library at Burlington, and others, 
founded by wealthy and public-spirited Vermonters. 
The library of the Vermont University comprises 
forty thousand volumes, including the valuable gift 
of George P. Marsh. This now occupies one of 
the finest edifices of the kind in New England, 
the Billings Library Building. Such a wealth of 
literature as is now accessible to their descendants 
could hardly have been dreamed of by the old pio- 
neers, even while they laid its foundation. 

The first printing-office in Vermont was estab- 
lished at Westminster in 1778 by Judah Paddock 
Spooner and Timothy Green, 1 the first of whom 
and Alden Spooner were appointed state printers. 
The enactments of the two preceding legislatures 
had been published only in manuscript, a method 
of promulgation which one would think might have 
curbed verbosity. Judah Spooner and his first 
partner began the publication of the pioneer news- 
paper of the State, the " Vermont Gazette, or 
Green Mountain Post Boy," at Westminster in 
February, 1781. It was printed on a sheet of pot 
size, issued every Monday. Its motto, characteristic 
of its birthplace, was : — 

1 Vermont, by Zadock Thompson, an invaluable history. 



318 VERMONT. 

" Pliant as Reeds where Streams of Freedom glide, 
Firm as the Hills to stem Oppression's tide." 

Its publication was continued but two years. " Tho 
Vermont Gazette or Freeman's Depository," the 
second newspaper of the State, was published at 
Bennington in 1783, and continued for more than 
half a century. About this time George Hough 
removed the Spooner press to Windsor, and in 
company with Alden Spooner began the publica- 
tion of a weekly newspaper entitled " The Verm'ont 
Journal and Universal Advertiser," which was con- 
tinued until about 1834. The fourth paper, " The 
Rutland Herald or Courier," was established in 
1792 by Anthony Haswell, and is still continued 
in weekly and daily issues, being the oldest paper 
in the State. William Lloyd Garrison edited " The 
Spirit of the Times," at Bennington, not long be- 
fore he became the foremost standard-bearer of 
the anti-slavery cause, with which his name was so 
intimately associated. In 1839 " The Voice of 
Freedom " was begun at Montpelier, as the organ 
of the anti-slavery society of the State, and was 
afterward merged in " The Green Mountain Free- 
man," published in the interest of the political 
Abolitionists or Liberty Party.. The publication 
of " The Vermont Precursor," the first paper estab- 
lished at Montpelier, was begun in 1808, and soon 
after changed its name to " The Vermont Watch- 
man." For more than fifty years this paper was 
conducted by the Waltons, father and sons, and is 
still continued. In 1817 they began the publication 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 319 

of " Walton's Vermont Register," which is issued 
annually, bearing the name of its founder, and is 
a recognized necessity in every household and office 
in the State. Eliakim P. Walton, one of the sons, 
also rendered his State most valuable service in 
editing the records of the governor and council. 

A majority of the newspapers have displayed 
with justifiable pride the name of the State in their 
titles. A number have had but a brief existence, 
scarcely remembered now but for the names of 
their founders or their own strange titles, such as 
the " Horn of the Green Mountains," " The Post 
Boy," " Tablet of the Times," " Northern Memento," 
and " The Reformed Drunkard." The Spooners 
seem to have been intimately connected with early 
newspapers and printing in the young common- 
wealth, for at least four of this name were en- 
gaged in such business. The famous Matthew 
Lyon edited for a while " The Farmer's Library," 
and Rufus W. Griswold the " Vergennes Ver- 
monter ; r T>. P. Thompson, the novelist, " The 
Green Mountain Freeman," and C. G. Eastman, the 
poet, "The Spirit of the Age," and u The Argus." 

The dingy little papers of the olden time, with 
their month-old news, the brief oracular editorial 
comments, their advertisements of trades and in- 
dustries now obsolete, their blazoning of lotteries 
and the sale of liquors, now alike illegal, were wel- 
come visitors in every household ; and the weekly 
round of the post-rider was watched for with an 
eagerness that can hardly be understood by people 



320 VERMONT. 

to whom come daily and hourly, by mail and tele- 
graph, news of recent events in all quarters of the 
globe. To those old-time readers of blurred type 
on gray paper, scanned by the ruddy glare of pine 
knots or the feeble light of tallow-dips, the tidings 
of foreign events which had happened months be- 
fore came fresher than to us what but yesterday 
first stirred the heart of Europe. 

Now, every considerable village in the State has 
its weekly paper, the larger towns these and daily 
papers. When Zadock Thompson published his 
" Vermont Gazetteer " in 1840, there were thirty 
papers published in the State, where now are, ac- 
cording to Walton's Register for 1891, sixty-one 
daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals. 

For many years liquor- drinking was a universal 
custom, and a householder suffered greater morti- 
fication if he had no strong waters to set before his 
guest than if the supply of bread and meat was 
short. The cellar of every farmhouse in the apple- 
growing region had its generous store of cider, some 
of which went to the neighboring still to be con- 
verted into more potent apple-jack, here known as 
cider-brandy. This and New England rum were 
the ordinary tipple of the multitude, and the prolific 
source of hilarity, maudlin gabble, and bickerings 
at bees, June trainings, and town meetings. Drunk- 
enness was disgraceful, but the limit was wide, for 
a man was not held to be drunk as long as he could 
keep upon his feet. When he fell, and clung to the 
grass to keep himself from rolling off the heaving 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 321 

earth, he became open to the charge of intoxication, 
and fit for the adornment of the stocks. Many a 
goodly farm, that had been uncovered of the forest 
by years of labor, floated out of its owner's hands 
in the continual dribble of New England rum and 
cider-brandy. 

The signboard of the wayside inn swung at such 
frequent intervals along the main thoroughfares 
that the traveler must be slow indeed who had time 
to grow thirsty between these places of entertain- 
ment. The old-time landlord was a very different 
being from his successor, the modern hotel pro- 
prietor. Though a person of consideration, and 
maintaining a certain dignity, he received his guests 
with genial hospitality, and at once established a 
friendly relationship with them which he considered 
gave him a right to their confidence. Ensconced 
in his cage-like bar, paled from counter to ceiling, 
the landlord drew from his guests all the informa- 
tion they would give of their own and the world's 
affairs, — their whence-coming and whither-going, 
— while he dispensed foreign and domestic strong 
waters, or made sudden sallies to the fireplace where 
lay the ever-ready flip-iron, blushing in its bed of 
embers. Good old Governor Thomas Chittenden 
was a famous tavern-keeper, and as inquisitive con- 
cerning his guests' affairs as other publicans of 
those days. He used to tell with relish of a rebuff 
he got from a wayfarer who stopped to irrigate his 
dusty interior at the governor's bar. " Where 
might you come from, friend ? " the governor asked. 



322 VERMONT. 

" From down below," was the curt reply. 

"And where might you be going?" 

" To Canada." 

" To Canada ? Indeed ! And what might take 
you there ? " 

" To get my pension." 

" A pension ? And what might you get a pension 
for, friend ? " 

" For what you never can, as I judge." 

" Indeed ! And what is that ? " 

" For minding my own business." 

Temperance began to have earnest advocates, 
men who, for the sake of their convictions, suffered 
unpopularity and persecution. A Quaker miller 
refused to grind grain for a distillery, and the 
owners brought a suit against him to compel him 
to do so. After a long and vexatious suit, the case 
was decided against him, but he persisted in his 
refusal, and the distillery was finally abandoned. 
Some would no longer comply with the old custom 
of furnishing liquor to their help in haymaking and 
to their neighbors who came to give a helping hand 
at bees, and by this infraction of ancient usage made 
themselves unpopular till a better sentiment pre- 
vailed. 

There were zealots who cut down acres of thrifty 
orchard, as if there were no use for apples but 
cider-making. Through moral suasion and the 
honest example of good men, a great change was 
wrought in the sentiment of the people, till at last 
temperance became popular enough to become a 



RELIGION, EDUCATION, TEMPERANCE. 323 

matter of politics. Moral suasion was in the main 
abandoned, and the old workers dropped out of 
sight. 

Vermont followed the lead of Maine in legisla- 
tion for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and in 
1852 passed a prohibitory law. Each succeeding 
assembly has legislated to increase the stringency 
and efficiency of the prohibitory statutes. Yet the 
fact remains that, after forty years' trial, prohibi- 
tion does not prohibit, and presents the anomaly of 
an apparently popular law feebly and perfunctorily 
enforced. 

It is a question whether the frequent and unno- 
ticed violations of this law, and the many abortive 
prosecutions under it, have not made all laws less 
sacredly observed, and the crime of perjury appear 
to the ordinary mind a merely venial sin. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

EMIGRATION. 

When the tide of emigration began to flow from 
New England to the newly opened land of promise 
in the West, Vermont still offered virgin fields to 
be won by the enterprising and ambitious young 
men of the older States. Thousands of acres, ca- 
pable of bounteous fruitfulness, still lay in the per- 
petual shadow of the woods, untouched by spade or 
plough ; and the forest growth of centuries was it- 
self a harvest worth the gathering, while wild cata- 
racts still invited masterful hands to tame them to 
utility. 

Some decades elapsed before the young State 
began to furnish material for the founding and 
growth of other new commonwealths, except such 
restless spirits as can never find a congenial place 
but in the foremost rank of pioneers. Such an one 
was Matthew Lyon, who, having borne his part in 
the establishment of the first State of his adoption, 
early in the century removed to Kentucky, then 
farther westward to Missouri, in whose territorial 
government he had become the most prominent 
figure when death set a period to his enterprise and 
ambition. 



EMIGRATION. 325 

Though there were yet vast tracts in Vermont 
awaiting the axe and the plough, the fertile lands of 
the West began to draw from the State a steadily 
increasing flow of emigration. The tales of illimit- 
able acres unencumbered by forest, and warmed by 
a genial climate, were attractive to men tired of war- 
fare with the woods, and the beleaguering of bitter 
winters. The blood of their pioneering fathers was 
fresh in their veins, and impelled them to found 
new homes and new States. 

The first migrations were made in wagons drawn 
by horses or oxen, and beneath whose tent-like cov- 
ers were bestowed the bare necessities of household 
stuff and provision for the tedious journey. 

After leave-takings as sad as funerals, the emi- 
grants sorrowfully yet hopefully set forth. Slowly 
the beloved landmarks of the mountains sank as 
the miles lengthened behind them, and slowly un- 
folded before them level lands and sluggish streams. 
The earlier stages of the journey were relieved by 
trivial incidents, and the new experience of gypsy- 
like nightly encampment by the wayside; but as 
day after day and week after week passed, the new 
and unfamiliar scenes, still stranger and less home- 
like, grew wearisome to the tired men and jaded, 
homesick women and children, and incident be- 
came a monotonous round of discomfort. 

In 1825 a swifter and easier path was opened to 
the West when, two years after the Champlain Canal 
had connected the waters of Lake Champlain and 
the Hudson, the Erie Canal was completed. The 



326 VERMONT. 

new thoroughfare was thronged with emigrants, 
of whom Vermont furnished her full share of fam- 
ilies, and of enterprising young men seeking to 
better their fortunes in the land of plenty known 
there in common speech as " The 'Hio," or in that 
farther region of prairies whose western bound was 
the golden sunset, and where they whose plough had 
turned no virgin soil till the axe had first cleared 
its path should behold the miracle of fertile plains 
that had never been shadowed by forest. When 
the long journey was accomplished, a quarter of the 
continent lay between them and the old home ; and 
though they lived out the allotted days of man, the 
separation of kindred and friends was often as final 
as that of death. 

Mails were weeks in making the passage that is 
now accomplished in a few days ; and the grass 
might be green on the graves of kindred and 
friends in the old or the new home before tidings 
of their death brought a new and sudden grief 
from the distant prairie, or from the New England 
hillside, where its pain had already grown dull with 
accustomed loss. 

The course of emigration tended westward nearly 
within the parallels of latitude that bound New 
England, and but few pioneers of Vermont birth 
diverged much below the southward limit of a re- 
gion whose climate, kindred, emigrants, and famil- 
iar institutions, transplanted from the East, most 
attracted them. 

The fertile lands of Ohio were chosen by many, 



EMIGRATION. 327 

while more were drawn to Michigan, Wisconsin, 
Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, in all of whom Vermont- 
ers took their place as founders of homes and free 
commonwealths, and gave each some worthy charac- 
teristic of that from which they came. When gold 
was discovered in California, many Vermonters 
flocked thither in quest of fortune, and many re- 
mained there to become life-long citizens of the 
State in whose marvelous growth they were a part. 

From their inauguration, the great railroad sys- 
tems of the West have made another and continu- 
ous drain upon the best population of the East ; 
and in every department of the enormous business 
men of Vermont birth and training are found con- 
spicuously honored for their ability and integrity. 

The rapidly growing cities, the immense sheep 
and cattle ranches, and all the new enterprises of the 
whole West, have drawn great numbers of ambitious 
young Vermonters to every State and Territory of 
the wonderful region. Indeed, there is not a State 
in the Union in which some Vermonters have not 
made their home ; but however far they may have 
wandered from the land of their birth, they cherish 
the mountaineer's love of home, and a just pride in 
the goodly heritage of their birthright. 

Wherever in their alien environment they have 
congregated to any considerable number, they are 
associated as Sons of Vermont. Chicago boasts 
the largest society, as its State does the greatest 
number of citizens, of Vermont birth. 1 St. Louis 

1 " The first president of this association was Guerdon S. Hub- 



328 VERMONT. 

has a large association of the kind, as have other 
Western cities. Even so near their old home as 
Boston, 1 Worcester, Providence, and Brooklyn, 
the Sons of Vermont gather annually to refresh 
fond memories, and celebrate the virtues of their 
beloved State. 

To fill the place left by this constant drain on 
its population, the State has for the most part re- 
ceived a foreign element, which, though it keeps her 
numbers good, poorly compensates for her loss. 

Invasions of Vermont from Canada did not cease 
with the War of the Revolution, nor with the later 
war with Great Britain. On the contrary, an in- 
sidious and continuous invasion began with the es- 
tablishment of commercial and friendly relations 
between the State and the Province. Early in the 
century, a few French Canadians, seeking the small 
fortune of better wages, came over the border, and 
along the grand waterway which their noble coun- 
tryman had discovered and given his name, and 
over which so many armies of their people had 
passed, sometimes in the stealth of maraud, some- 
times in all the glorious pomp of war. At first the 
few new-comers were tenants of the farmers, for 
whom they worked by the day or month at fair 
wages, for the men were expert axemen, familiar 
with all the labors of land-clearing, and as handy as 

bard, a Vermonter, who was instrumental in founding and estab- 
lishing the eity of Chicago, who went there in 1819, and later, ten 
years afterwards, when Chicago only had a fort and one house." — 
George Edmund Foss. 
1 S. E. Howard. 



EMIGRATION. 329 

Yankees with scythe and sickle ; while their wea- 
ther-browned wives and grown-up daughters could 
reap and bind as well as they, and did not hold 
themselves above any outdoor work. 

After a while some acquired small holdings of a 
few acres, or less than one, and built thereon log- 
houses, that with eaves of notched shingles and 
whitewashed outer walls, with the pungent odor of 
onions and pitch-pine fires, looked and smelled as 
if they had been transplanted from Canada with 
their owners. 

When the acreage of meadow land and grain- 
field had broadened beyond ready harvesting by 
the resident yeomen, swarms of Canadian laborers 
came flocking over the border in gangs of two or 
three, baggy-breeched and moccasined habitants, 
embarked in rude carts drawn by shaggy Canadian 
ponies. After a month or two of haymaking and 
harvesting, they jogged homeward with their earn- 
ings, whereunto were often added some small pil- 

• 
ferino-s, for their fingers were as light as their 

hearts. This annual wave of inundation from the 
north ceased to flow with the general introduction 
of the mowing-machine ; and the place in the 
meadow once held by the rank of habitants pictur- 
esque in garb, swinging their scythes in unison to 
some old song sung centuries ago in France, has 
been usurped by the utilitarian device that, with 
incessant chirr as of ten thousand sharded wings, 
mingling with the music of the bobolinks, sweeps 
down the broad acres of daisies, herdsgrass, and 
clover. 



330 VERMONT. 

Many Canadians returned with their families to 
live in the land which they had spied out in their 
summer incursions, and so in one way and another 
the influx continued till they have become the most 
numerous of Vermont's foreign population. 

For years the State was infested with an infe- 
rior class of these people, who plied the vocation 
of professional beggars. They made regular trips 
through the country in bands consisting of one or 
more families, with horses, carts, and ricketty wag- 
ons, and a retinue of curs, soliciting alms of pork, 
potatoes, and breadstuffs at every farmhouse they 
came to, and pilfering when opportunity offered. 
In the large towns there were depots where the 
proceeds of their beggary and theft were disposed 
of. They were an abominable crew of vagabonds, 
robust, lazy men and boys, slatternly women with 
litters of filthy brats, and all as detestable as they 
were uninteresting. They worked their beats suc- 
cessfully, till their pitiful tales of sickness, burn- 
ings-out, and journey ings to friends in distant towns 
were worn threadbare, and then they gradually dis- 
appeared, no one knows whither. 

Almost to a man, the Canadians who settled in 
Vermont were devout Catholics when they came ; 
but after they had been scattered for a few years 
among such a preponderant Protestant community, 
most of them were held very loosely by the bonds 
of mother church. Except they were residents of 
the larger towns they seldom saw a priest, and en- 
joyed a comfortable immunity from fasting, penance, 



EMIGRATION. 331 

and all ecclesiastic exactions on stomach or purse. 
On New Year's Day, perhaps the members of the 
family confessed to the venerable grandsire, but 
after that suffered no religious inconvenience until 
the close of the year. Now and then one strayed 
quite out of the fold and took his place boldly among 
the heretics, and apparently did not thereby forfeit 
the fellowship of his more faithful compatriots. 
But when the flock had become large enough to 
pay for the shearing, shepherds of the true faith 
were not wanting. With that steadfast devotion 
to the interests of their church which has always 
characterized the Catholic priesthood, these men 
be^an their work without ostentation, and have 
succeeded in drawing into the domination of their 
church a large majority of the Canadian-born in- 
habitants of Vermont and of their descendants, 
as completely as if they were yet citizens of the 
province, which Parkman truly says, is "one of 
the most priest-ridden communities of the modern 

world." 

What this leaven may finally work in the Pro- 
testant mass with which it has become incorporated 
is a question that demands more attention than it 
has yet received. 

The character of these people is not such as to 
inspire the highest hope for the future of Vermont, 
if they should become the most numerous of its 
population. The affiliation with Anglo-Americans 
of a race so different in traits, in traditions, and in 
religion must necessarily be slow, and may never be 
complete. 



332 VERMONT. 

No great love for their adopted country can be 
expected of a people that evinces so little for that 
of its origin as lightly to cast aside names that 
proudly blazon the pages of French history for 
poor translations or weak imitations of them in 
English, nor can broad enlightenment be hoped for 
of a race so dominated by its priesthood. 

Vermont, as may be seen, has given of her best 
for the building of new commonwealths, to her own 
loss of such material as has made her all that her 
sons, wherever found, are so proud of, — material 
whose place no alien drift from northward or over 
seas can ever fill. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

"THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS." 

There is little to interest any but the politician 
in the political history of the State during the un- 
eventful years of three decades following the War 
of 1812. At the next election after the close of the 
war the Republican party proved strong enough 
to elect to the governorship its candidate, Jonas 
Galusha, who was continued in that office for the 
five succeeding terms. When, in consequence of 
the abduction of Morgan, the opposing parties were 
arrayed as Masonic and anti-Masonic in the battle 
of ballots, the Masonic party of Vermont went to 
the wall. 

When the two great parties of the nation rallied 
under their distinctive banners as Whigs and Dem- 
ocrats, Vermont took its place with the first, and 
held it steadfastly alike through defeats and in- 
frequent triumphs of the party until its dissolution. 
So constantly was its vote given to the state and 
national candidates of the Whigs that it gained the 
title of " The Star that never sets." 

From the adoption of its Constitution 1 in 1777, 

1 E. P. Walton, in Governor and Council, vol. 1. p. 92, says, 
" This was the first emancipation act in America." 



334 VERMONT. 

which prohibited slave-holding, Vermont has been 
the opponent of slavery. The brave partisan 
leader, Captain Ebenezer Allen, only expressed the 
freedom-loving sentiment of the Green Mountain 
Boys when he declared he was " conscientious that 
it is not right in the sight of God to keep slaves," 
and set free those taken prisoners with the British 
troops on Lake Champlain. 

It was natural that among the descendants of 
those people, the inhabitants of a mountain land 
such as ever nourishes the spirit of liberty and 
wherein slavery has never found a congenial soil, 
there should be found many earnest men ready 
to join the crusade which, under the leadership of 
Garrison, began in 1833 to assail the great national 
sin with a storm of denunciation. 

They denounced the scheme of African coloniza- 
tion, which had a respectable following in Vermont, 
as a device of the slave power to rid itself of the 
dangerous element of free blacks, under pretense 
of Christianizing Africa while here gradual emanci- 
pation should be brought about ; and thus they 
aroused the antagonism of the body of the clergy, 
who had been hoodwinked by the pious plausibil- 
ity of the plan. 

A line of the Underground Railroad Held its 
hidden way through Vermont, along which many 
a dark-skinned passenger secretly traveled, con- 
cealed during the day in the quiet stations, at 
night passing from one to another, helped onward 
by friendly hands till he reached Canada and 



" THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS." 335 

gained the protection of that government which in 
later years was to become the passive champion 
of his rebellious master. 

The star-guided fugitive might well feel an as- 
surance of liberty when his foot touched the soil 
that in the old days had given freedom to Dinah 
Mattis and her child, and draw a freer breath in 
the State whose judge in later years demanded of 
a master, before his runaway slave would be given 
up to him, that he should produce a bill of sale 
from the Almighty. 1 

The abolitionists were no more given than other 
reformers to the choice of soft words in their ob- 
jurgations of what they knew to be a sin against 
God and their fellow-men ; yet they were men of 
peace, almost without exception, — non-resistants, 
— and freedom of speech was their right. It is 
humiliating to remember that there was an ele- 
ment in this State base enough to oppose them by 
mob violence. An anti-slavery meeting convened 
at the capital in 1835 was broken up by a ruf- 
fianly rabble, who pelted the speakers with rotten 
eggs, and became so violent in their demonstra- 
tions that it was unsafe for the principal speaker, 
Rev. Samuel J. May of Boston, to leave the build- 
ing, till a Quaker lady quietly stepped forward, and, 
taking his arm, walked out with him through the 
turbulent crowd, which, though noisy and threat- 
ening, had decency enough to respect a lady and 
her escort. There were like disturbances in some 

1 Theophilus Harrington. 



336 VERMONT. 

other Vermont towns where the abolitionists gath- 
ered to advocate their cause, but the intensity of 
bitterness against them gradually wore away, and 
they continued to gain adherents, till the question 
of the extension of slave territory became the all- 
absorbing subject of political controversy. 

In 1820 the representatives of Vermont in Con- 
gress opposed the admission of Missouri as a slave 
State, though her senators were divided. In 1825 
the legislature passed resolutions deprecating sla- 
very as an evil, and declaring, " This General As- 
sembly will accord in any measures which may be 
adopted by the general government for its aboli- 
tion in the United States that are consistent with 
the right of the people and the general harmony 
of the States." Ten years later, in the same year 
that the anti-slavery meeting was broken up by the 
rabble in the very shadow of the capitol, the legisla- 
ture assembled there declared, that " neither Con- 
gress nor the state governments have any consti- 
tutional right to abridge the free expression of 
opinions, or the transmission of them through the 
public mail," and that Congress possessed the power 
to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. 

In 1841 the anti-slavery sentiment had so far 
increased in the State as to take political form, and 
votes enough were cast for the candidate of the Lib- 
erty party for governor to prevent an election by 
the people. Two years later the assembly enacted 
that no officer or citizen of the State should seize 
or assist in the seizure of " any person for the 



"THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS." 337 

reason that he is or may be claimed as a fugitive 
slave," and that no officer or citizen should trans- 
port or assist in the transportation of such person 
to any place in or out of the State ; and that, for 
like reason, no person should be imprisoned " in 
any jail or other building belonging to the State, 
or to any county, town, city, or person therein.' , 
When Congress in 1850, after a fierce storm of 
debate, passed the odious Fugitive Slave Law, which 
made United States marshals, and at their behest 
every citizen of the republic, servants of the arro- 
gant slave power, and withheld from whoever might 
be claimed as a slave the right of testifying in his 
own behalf, Vermont was faithful to freedom and 
the spirit of her Constitution. Her legislature of 
the same year passed an act requiring States' at- 
torneys " diligently and faithfully to use all lawful 
means to protect, defend, and procure to be dis- 
charged, every such person so arrested or claimed 
as a fugitive slave," and judicial and executive offi- 
cers in their respective counties to inform their 
State's attorney of the intended arrest of any per- 
son claimed as a fugitive slave. 

In many of the Northern States slave-hunting 
waxed hot and eager under the national law, but 
the hunters never attempted to seize their prey in 
the land of the Green Mountain Boys, though there 
were fugitive slaves living there, and an occasional 
passenger still fared along the mysterious course of 
the Underground Kailroad. 

Consequent upon the annexation of Texas came 



338 VERMONT. 

war with Mexico, — a war waged wholly in the in- 
terest of slavery extension, and forced by the great 
republic upon her younger sister, weak and dis- 
tracted by swiftly recurring revolutions. 

Having a purpose so opposite to the interest and 
sentiment of the people of Vermont, no possible 
appeal to arms could have been less popular among 
them. Yet upon the call of President Polk for vol- 
unteers, a company was soon recruited in the State. 
Under Captain Kimball of Woodstock, it formed 
a part of the 9th regiment, whose colonel was Tru- 
man B. Ransom, a Vermonter, who had been a 
military instructor in the Norwich University, and 
in a similar institution at the South. The 9th 
was attached to the brigade of General Pierce, in 
General Pillow's division, under General Scott. 
The army of Americans, always outnumbered, 
often three to one, by the enemy, could not have 
fought more bravely in a better cause ; and the 
little band of Green Mountain Boys gave gallant 
proof that, in the more than thirty years which had 
elapsed since they were last called forth to battle, 
the valor of their race had not abated. Colonel 
Ransom fell while leading his regiment in a charge 
at Chepultepec; and the Vermont company was 
one of the foremost at the storming of the castle, it 
being claimed for Captain Kimball and Sergeant- 
Major Fairbanks that they hauled down the Mexi- 
can colors, and raised the stars and stripes above 
the captured fortress. 1 

1 Dana's History of Woodstock. 



"THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS." 339 

Upon the dissolution of the Whig party, the least 
subservient to the slavery propagandists of the two 
great political parties in the North, Vermont at 
once took her place under the newly unfurled ban- 
ner of the Republicans, — a place which she has 
ever since steadfastly maintained through victory 
and defeat. In 1856 her vote was cast for Fre- 
mont, and four years later, by an increased major- 
ity, for Lincoln. Few who cast their votes at this 
memorable election foresaw that its result would 
so soon precipitate the inevitable conflict. But five 
brief months passed, and all were awakened to the 
terrible reality of war. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

VEEMONT IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 

The dreariness of the long Northern winter was 
past. The soft air of spring again breathed through 
the peaceful valleys, wafting the songs of return- 
ing birds, the voice of unfettered streams, and the 
sound of reawakened husbandry. Though far off 
in the Southern horizon the cloud of rebellion low- 
ered and threatened, men went about their ordi- 
nary affairs, still hoping for peace, till the tranquil- 
lity of those April days was broken by the bursting 
storm of civil war. 

With the echo of its first thunder came President 
Lincoln's call for troops, and Vermont responded 
with a regiment of her sons, as brave, though their 
lives had been lapped in peace, as the war-nurtured 
Green Mountain Boys of old. The military spirit 
had been but feebly nursed during many tranquil 
years, yet, at the first breath of this storm, it blazed 
up in a fervor of patriotic fire such as never before 
had been witnessed. 

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, no Northern 
State was less prepared for war than Vermont. Ex- 
cept in the feeble existence of four skeleton regi- 
ments, her militia was unorganized, the men subject 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 341 

to military service not being even enrolled. Some 
of the uniformed companies were without guns, 
others drilled with ancient flintlocks ; and the State 
possessed but five hundred serviceable percussion 
muskets, and no tents nor camp equipage ; while 
the Champlain arsenal at Vergennes, like other 
United States arsenals in the North, had been 
stripped by Floyd, the Secretary of War, of every- 
thing but a few superannuated muskets and useless 
cannon. The continual outflow of emigration had 
drawn great numbers of the stalwart young men of 
the rural population to the Western States, in whose 
regiments many of them were already enlisting, and 
she had not the large towns nor floating population 
which in most other States contributed so largely 
the material for armies. 

The governor, Erastus Fairbanks, immediately 
issued a proclamation, announcing the outbreak of 
rebellion, and the President's call for volunteers, 
and summoning the legislature to assemble on the 
25th of April. His proclamation bore even date 
with that of the President, and is believed to have 
antedated by at least a day the like proclamation 
of any other governor. 1 

In the brief interval between the summoning 
and the assembling of the legislature, in all parts 
of the State men were drilling and volunteering. 
Banks and individuals tendered their money, rail- 
road and steamboat companies offered free trans- 
portation for troops and munitions of war, and 
1 G. G. Benedict, Vermont in the Civil War. 



342 VERMONT. 

patriotic women were making uniforms of " Ver- 
mont gray " for the ten companies of militia 
chosen on the 19fch of April to form the 1st regi- 
ment. 

The train which brought the legislators to the 
capital was welcomed by a national salute from 
the two cannon captured at Bennington. Without 
distinction of party, senators and representatives 
met the imperative demands of the time with such 
resolute purpose that in forty-eight hours they had 
accomplished the business for which they were 
assembled, and had adjourned. A bill was unani- 
mously passed appropriating one million dollars for 
war expenses. Provision was made for raising six 
more regiments for two years' service, for it was 
forecast by the legislature that the war was not 
likely to be confined to one campaign, nor an in- 
significant expenditure of money. Each private 
was to be paid by the State seven dollars a month 
in addition to the thirteen dollars offered by the 
United States. If his aged parents or wife and 
children should come to want while he was fight- 
ing his country's battles, they were not to be- 
come town paupers, but the wards of the common- 
wealth. 

The ten companies were rapidly filled, their 
equipment was completed, and they assembled at 
Rutland on the 2d of May, with John W. Phelps 
as colonel, a native of Vermont, who had served 
with distinction in the Mexican War as lieutenant, 
and captain in the regular army. No fitter choice 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 343 

could have been made of a commander for the 
regiment than this brave and conscientious soldier, 
who, though a strict disciplinarian, exercised such 
fatherly care over his men that he won their love 
and respect. 

After some delay the regiment was mustered 
into the United States service on the 8th. It was 
the opinion of the Adjutant-General that there 
were troops enough already at Washington for its 
defense, and that the 1st Vermont might better 
be held in its own State for a while. But when 
General Scott learned that a regiment of Green 
Mountain Boys, commanded by Phelps, was await- 
ing marching orders, he wished them sent on at once. 
" I want your Vermont regiments, all of them. I 
remember the Vermont men on the Niagara fron- 
tier," and he remembered Captain Phelps at Con- 
treras and Cherubusco. A special messenger was 
dispatched to Rutland with orders to march, and on 
the 9th of May, the eighty-sixth anniversary of the 
mustering of Allen's mountaineers for the attack 
of Ticonderoga, this regiment of worthy inheritors 
of their home and name set forth for Fortress 
Monroe. There were heavy hearts in the cheering 
throng that bade them Godspeed and farewell, — 
heavier than they bore, for to them was appointed 
action : to those they left behind, only waiting in 
hope and fear and prayer for the return of their 
beloved. On its passage through New York, the 
regiment attracted much admiration for the stat- 
ure and soldierly bearing of its members, each of 



344 VERMONT. 

whom wore in his gray cap, as proudly as a knight 
his plume, the evergreen badge of his State. 

Each succeeding regiment bore this emblem to 
the front, to be drenched in blood, to be scathed in 
the fire of war, to wither in the pestilential air of 
Southern prisons, but never to be dishonored. 

" Who is that tall Vermont colonel ? " one spec- 
tator asked, pointing to the towering form of Colo- 
nel Phelps. 

" That," answered another, " is old Ethan Allen 
resurrected ! " 

The 1st was stationed at Fortress Monroe, and 
remained there and in the vicinity during its term 
of service. At Big Bethel, in the first engagement 
of the war worthy the name of a battle, it bore 
bravely its part, though the ill-planned attack re- 
sulted in failure. The throngs of fugitive slaves 
who sought refuge with Colonel Phelps were not 
returned to their masters, but allowed to come and 
go as they pleased, and thereafter were safe when 
they had found their way into the camps of Ver- 
monters, though they were given up by the officers 
of other volunteers and of the regulars. General 
Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, assuming 
that they were contraband of war, refused to return 
them to slavery, and put them to efficient service 
in the construction of fortifications. The regiment 
returned to Vermont early in August, and was 
mustered out, but of its members five out of every 
six reentered the service in regiments subsequently 
raised, and two hundred and fifty held commissions. 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 845 

Their colonel, now appointed brigadier-general, re- 
maining at Fortress Monroe, greatly regretted their 
departure. " A regiment the like of which will 
not soon be seen again," he said to Colonel Wash- 
burn. Yet, before the leaves had fallen that were 
greening the Vermont hills when the 1st regiment 
left them, five other regiments in no wise inferior 
had gone to the front, to a more active service and 
bloodier fields. 

The 2d Vermont, its ten companies selected from 
over 5,600 men who offered themselves, went to 
the front in time to take part in the first great 
battle of the war at Bull Run. Thenceforth till 
the close of the war this splendid regiment took 
part in almost every battle in which the Army of 
the Potomac was engaged. Its ratio of killed and 
mortally wounded was eight times greater than 
was the average in the Union army. The 3d 
regiment followed in July, the 4th and 5th were 
rapidly filled and sent forward in September, the 
6th in October. These five regiments formed the 
First Brigade of the Sixth Corps. The heroic 
service 1 of this brigade is interwoven with the 

1 The limits of this work preclude detailed account of the 
noble services of Vermont troops, which are fully and graphically 
related in G. G. Benedict's valuable work, Vermont in the Civil 
War. Of many noble examples of heroic self-devotion where 
Vermonters unflinchingly endured the storm of fire, the record of 
the 5th regiment at Savage's Station is memorable, — in the 
space of twenty minutes, every other man in the line was killed or 
wounded. Company E went into the fight with 59 officers and 
privates, of whom only seven came out unhurt and £5 were killed 



346 VERMONT. 

history of the Army of the Potomac. The estima- 
tion in which it was held is shown by the respon- 
sible and dangerous positions to which it was so 
often assigned, and in the praise bestowed upon it 
by distinguished generals under which it served. 
When the Sixth Corps was to be hurried with all 
speed to the imperiled field of Gettysburg, Sedg- 
wick's order was, " Put the Vermonters in front, 
and keep the column well closed up." " No body 
of troops in or out of the Army of the Potomac 
made their record more gallantly, sustained it more 
heroically, or wore their honors more modestly." l 

At the time of the draft riots in New York, in 
July, 1863, the First Vermont Brigade, with other 
most reliable troops to the number of twelve thou- 
sand, were sent thither to preserve order during the 
continuance of the draft. It was a strange turn of 
time that brought Vermont regiments to protect 
the city whose colonial rulers had set the ban of 
outlawry upon the leaders of the old Green Moun- 
tain Boys. These later bearers of the name per- 
formed their duty faithfully and without arrogance, 
and received warm praise of all good citizens for 
their orderly behavior during what was holiday 
service to such veterans. 

or mortally wounded. Five brothers named Cummings, a cousin 
of the same name, and a brother-in-law, all recruited on one street 
of the historic town of Manchester, were members of this com- 
pany. All but one were killed or mortally wounded in this ac- 
tion, and he received a wound so severe that he was discharged 
by special order of the Secretary of War. 

1 Adjutant-Ganeral McMahon of the Sixth Corps. 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 347 

Vermont horses had won a national reputation 
as well as Vermont men, and it seemed desirable 
that the government should avail itself of the ser- 
vices of both. Accordingly, in the fall of 1861, a 
regiment of cavalry was recruited under direct 
authority of the Secretary of War ; and in forty- 
two days after the order was issued, the men and 
their horses were in " Camp Ethan Allen " at 
Burlington. But one larger regiment, the 11th, 
went from the State, and none saw more constant 
or harder service. It brought home its flag in- 
scribed with the names of seventy-five battles and 
skirmishes. 

The 7th and 8th regiments of infantry and two 
companies of light artillery were raised early in 
1862, and were assigned to service in the Gulf 
States, in the department commanded by General 
Butler. Arrived at Ship Island, much to their 
gratification, they were placed under the immediate 
command of their own general, Phelps. Faithful 
to the spirit of his State and his own convictions 
of justice, he had issued 1 a proclamation to the 
loyal citizens of the Southwest, declaring that sla- 
very was incompatible with free government, and 
the aim of the government to be its overthrow. 
Fugitive slaves found a safe refuge in his camp 
here, as in Virginia, and in May, 1862, he began 
drilling and organizing three regiments of blacks. 
But upon his requisition for muskets to arm them, 
he was peremptorily ordered by General Butler to 

1 December, 1861. 



848 VERMONT. 

desist from organizing colored troops, and lie re- 
signed his commission. " The government," says 
Benedict in " Vermont in the Civil War," " which 
before the war closed had 175,000 colored men un- 
der arms, thus lost the eervices of as brave, faith- 
ful, and patriotic an officer as it had in its army, 
one whose only fault as a soldier was that he was 
a little in advance of his superiors in willingness 
to accept the aid of all loyal citizens, white or 
black, in the overthrow of rebellion." 

In July, 1862, the 9th regiment, commanded by 
Colonel Stannard, went to the front, being the first 
under the recent call for three hundred thousand 
men. Its initial service was at Harper's Ferry, 
where it presently suffered the humiliation of sur- 
render with the rest of Miles's force. In the little 
fighting that occurred, the raw regiment bore itself 
bravely. Colonel Stannard begged Miles to let 
him storm Loudon Heights with his command 
alone, and then to cut his way out of the belea- 
guered post, but both requests were refused. The 
9th passed several months under parole at Chicago, 
was exchanged, and at length took its place in the 
Army of the Potomac. A portion of this regiment 
was the first of the Union infantry to carry the 
national flag into the rebel capital. 

The 10th and 11th regiments were speedily for- 
warded in the fall of 1862. The former joined the 
army in Virginia. The latter, recruited as heavy 
artillery, spent two years in garrison duty in the 
defenses of Washington. When Grant began the 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 349 

campaign of the Wilderness, it joined the First 
Vermont Brigade as an infantry regiment, and its 
fifteen hundred men outnumbered the five other 
thinned regiments of the brigade that had so often 
been winnowed in the blasts of war, which soon 
swept its own ranks with deadly effect. 

Before these two regiments were organized came 
the President's call for three hundred thousand mi- 
litia to serve nine months, under which Vermont's 
quota was nearly five thousand. The five regi- 
ments were quickly raised and sent forward, and 
to three of them, just before their term of en- 
listment expired, fell a full share of the glories of 
Gettysburg, under the intrepid leader, General 
Stannard. The charge of his Vermont Brigade 
beat back Pickett's furious assault, and decided the 
fate of the day. 1 Once more the brave little com- 
monwealth was called on to furnish a regiment, 
and the 17th was sent to the front with ranks yet 
unfilled. Its third battalion drill was held on the 
battlefield of the Wilderness. The untried troops 
were hurled at once into the thick of the fight and 

1 On this historic field Vermont has marked with monuments 
the position held hy her troops. Where the war-worn First 
Brigade stood waiting but uncalled to stem the tide of battle, 
a crouching lion, alert for the onslaught, rears his majestic front, 
like the lion couchant of the Green Mountains. Another monu- 
ment stands where the Second Brigade beat back the impetuous 
fury of the rebel charges ; another where the Vermont cavalry 
dashed like a billow of fire and steel upon the foe ; and two where, 
at the Hornet's Nest and the Peach Orchard, the unerring rifles 
of Vermont's three companies of sharpshooters rained their con- 
stant fire upon the enemy. 



350 VERMONT. 

suffered fearful loss, and henceforth were almost 
continually engaged with the enemy till the fall of 
Richmond. 

Besides these seventeen regiments of infantry 
and one of cavalry, the State furnished for the 
defense of the Union three light batteries and 
three companies of sharpshooters, who well sus- 
tained the ancient renown of the marksmen whom 
Stark and Warner led, and at the close of the war 
Vermont stood credited with nearly thirty-four 
thousand men. Thus unstintingly did she devote 
her strength to the preservation of the Union to 
which she had been so reluctantly admitted. What 
manner of men they were, Sheridan testified when, 
two years after the war, standing beneath their 
tattered banners in Representatives' Hall at Mont- 
pelier, he said : "I have never commanded troops 
in whom I had more confidence than I had in the 
Vermont troops, and I do not know but I can say 
that I never commanded troops in whom I had as 
much confidence as those of this gallant State," 
and the torn and faded battle-flags under which 
he stood told more eloquently than words how 
bravely they had been borne through the peril of 
many battles, and honorably returned to the State 
that gave them. 

When, after four weary years, the war came to 
its successful close, the decimated regiments of 
Green Mountain Boys returned to their State, re- 
ceived a joyful but sad welcome, and then, with all 
the embattled host of Union volunteers, dissolved 
into the even, uneventful flow of ordinary life. 



IN THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 351 

Notwithstanding the remoteness of the State 
from the arena of war, Vermont suffered a rebel 
raid from a quarter whence of old her enemies 
had often come, though of right none should come 
now. A majority of the people of Canada were in 
warm sympathy with the rebellion, their govern- 
ment was indifferent, and the Dominion swarmed 
with disloyal Americans, who were continually 
plotting to aid their brethren at the front by co- 
vert attacks in the rear. The federal government 
was on its guard, but a blow fell suddenly at an 
unexpected point. * 

On the 19th of October, 1864, while Vermont 
troops under Sheridan were routing the rebels at 
Cedar Creek, a rather unusual number of strangers 
appeared in the village of St. Albans, a few miles 
from the Canadian border. Moving about singly 
or in small groups, and clad in citizen's dress, they 
attracted no particular attention, till, at a precon- 
certed signal, three small parties of them entered 
the banks, and with cocked and leveled pistols 
forced the officials to deliver up all the moneys in 
their keeping. Other armed men in the streets at 
once seized and placed under guard every citizen 
found astir, while some attempted to fire the town 
by throwing vials of so-called Greek fire into some 
of the principal buildings. Having possessed them- 
selves of the treasure in the banks, amounting to 
two hundred thousand dollars, in specie, bills, and 
bonds, the party took horses from the livery stables, 
and rode out of town, firing as they went a wanton 



352 VERMONT. 

f usilade which wounded several persons, but happily 
killed only a recreant New Englander who was in 
s}mipathy with their cause. They proved to be a 
band of rebel soldiers, commanded by a Lieutenant 
Young, who held a commission in the Confederate 
army. They beat a hurried retreat with their 
booty beyond the line, whither they were pursued 
by a hastily gathered party of mounted men under 
the lead of Captain Conger, who had served in 
the Union army. None of the raiders were taken, 
but later fourteen were captured in Canada, with 
$87,000 of the booty, by Otptain Conger's men, 
acting under orders of General Dix, and aided by 
Canadian officials. During their brief imprison- 
ment they were entertained as honored guests in 
the Montreal jail, and, after undergoing the farce 
of a trial in a Canadian court of justice, they were 
set at liberty amid cheers, which evinced the warm 
sympathy of the neutral Canadians. It appeared 
in the testimony of a detective that Colonel Armi- 
tinger, second in command of the Montreal militia, 
was aware of the contemplated raid, but took no 
measures to prevent it. " Let them go on," he said, 
" and have a fight on the frontier ; it is none of our 
business ; we can lose nothing by it." 

The affair formed an important point of consid- 
eration in the Geneva arbitration, and Secretary 
Stanton declared it one of the important events of 
the war, — " not so much as transferring in part 
the scenes and horrors of war to a peaceful, loyal 
State, but as leading to serious and dangerous com- 



I If THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. 353 

plications witli Great Britain, through the desires 
and efforts of the Southern people to involve Can- 
ada, and through her Britain, in a war on behalf 
of their Southern friends." * The unfriendly atti- 
tude which the Canadians held toward our govern- 
ment, throughout the struggle for its maintenance, 
might be profitably considered whenever the fre- 
quently arising project of annexation comes to the 
surface. 

The Fenian irruptions of 1866 and 1870, abor- 
tive except for the panic which they created in 
Canada, with more than the ordinary certainty of 
poetic justice, formed their base of operations at 
St. Albans, the point of rebel attack in Vermont. 

Impelled by the military spirit which the war 
had aroused, the legislature made provision for the 
organization of a uniformed volunteer militia, to 
which every township furnished its quota. Un- 
der the instruction of veterans of the war, the mi- 
litia made commendable progress in drill and disci- 
pline. But after a few years it was disbanded, and 
the commonwealth has drifted back into almost the 
condition of unpreparation which existed at the be- 
ginning of the war. For the most part, the young 
men who have become of military age since those 
troublous days are more unlearned than their mo- 
thers in the school of the soldier. 

1 History of the St Albans Raid, p. 48, by E. A. Sowles. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE VEKMONT PEOPLE. 

In the years of peace that have passed since the 
great national conflict, many changes have taken 
place in the commonwealth. The speculative spirit 
which arose from the inflation of values during 
that period in some degree affected almost every 
one, and still survives, when all values but that of 
labor have sunk to nearly their former level. Too 
great a proportion of the people sought to gain 
their living by their wits as speculators, — go-be- 
tweens of the producer and consumer, agents of 
every real or sham business and enterprise, largely 
increasing the useless class who really do nothing, 
produce nothing, and add nothing to the wealth of 
a State. This class is largely drawn from the 
greatly predominant agricultural population. 

Farmers, who in the years before the war could 
only bring the year around by the strictest econ- 
omy, suddenly became rich men, as farmers count 
wealth, by the doubled or trebled value of their 
land, and the same increase of price of all its pro- 
ducts, and fell into ways of extravagance that left 
them poorer than before, when prices went down, 
and withal more discontented with their lot. Men 



THE VERMONT PEOPLE. 355 

bought land at the prevailing extravagant prices, 
and a few years later found themselves stranded, 
by the subsiding tidal wave, on the barren shores 
of hopeless debt, and many such became ready re- 
cruits for the insane army of Greenbackers. 

The extravagance of their employers infected 
the wage-earners, and led them to the same silly 
emulation of display beyond their means, rather 
than to the founding of comfortable homes, — the 
ambition for something not quite attainable, which 
brings inevitable unrest and discontent. 

Sheep husbandry, the old and fostered industry 
of the State, with which it was so long identified, 
deserves more than a passing mention. As has 
been said in a former chapter, early in the century 
Vermont flocks were greatly improved by the in- 
troduction of the Spanish merinos. During 1809 
and 1810, William Jarvis, our consul at Lisbon, 
obtained about 4,000 merinos from the confiscated 
flocks of the Spanish nobles, and imported them to 
this country. The flocks of pure blood bred on Mr. 
Jarvis's beautiful estate at Weathersfield " Bow," 
lying on the western bank of the Connecticut, and 
half inclosed by the river, were not excelled by any 
in this country. From the Jarvis importation, and 
from a small flock of the Infantado family im- 
ported about the same time by Colonel Humphreys, 
our minister to Spain, the most valued merinos are 
descended. 

From various causes the value of sheep and wool 
has exhibited remarkable fluctuations. During the 



856 VERMONT. 

years 1809 and 1810, half-blood merino wool sold 
for seventy-five cents a pound, and full blood for 
two dollars, and during the war with England rose 
to the enormous price of two dollars and a half a 
pound ; full-blood rams sold for sums as great as 
the price of thoroughbred stallions, even ram lambs 
bringing a thousand dollars each : but such a sud- 
den downfall followed the peace that, before the 
end of 1815, full-blooded sheep sold for one dollar 
each. 

During the next ten years the price of wool con- 
tinued so low that nearly all the flocks of merinos 
were broken up, or deteriorated through careless 
breeding. At that time an increase in the duties 
on fine wool revived the prostrate industry, but 
unhappily led to the general introduction of the 
Saxon merinos, a strain bearing finer but lighter 
fleeces, and far less hardy than their Spanish cou- 
sins. The cross of the puny Saxon with these 
worked serious injury to the flocks, but was con- 
tinued for twenty years, and then abandoned so 
completely that all traces of the breed have disap- 
peared. The Spanish sheep again became the fa- 
vorites, or rather their American descendants, for 
these, through careful breeding by a few far-sighted 
shepherds, now surpassed in size, form, and weight 
of fleece their long neglected European contempo- 
raries, if not their progenitors from whom in their 
best days the importations had been drawn. 

Sheep-husbandry became the leading industry 
of Vermont, so generally entered upon that even 



THE VERMONT PEOPLE. 357 

the dairyman's acres were shared by some number 
of sheep, till every hillside pasture and broad level 
of the great valleys, rank with clover and herdsgrass, 
was cropped by its half hundred or hundreds of 
these unconscious inheritors of mixed or unadul- 
terated blue blood of the royal Spanish flocks. 

Along all thoroughfares, from the Massachusetts 
border to the Canadian frontier, the traveler, as he 
journeyed by stage or in his own conveyance, saw 
flocks dotting the close-cropped pastures with white 
or umber flecks, or huddled in the comfort of the 
barnyard, and the quavering bleat of the sheep was 
continually in his ears ; nor was the familiar sound 
left quite behind as he journeyed along the lonely 
woodland roads, for even there he was like to hear 
it, and, chiming with the thrush's song, the inter- 
mittent jangle of the tell-tale bell that marked the 
whereabouts of the midwood settler's half -wild flock. 

The " merino fever " again raged, and fabulous 
prices were paid for full-bloods, while unscrupulous 
jockeys " stubble sheared "and umbered sheep of 
doubtful pedigree into a simulation of desired qual- 
ities that fooled many an unsuspecting purchaser. 
Breeders and growers went to the opposite ex- 
treme from that which had been reached during 
the Saxon craze, and now sacrificed everything to 
weight of fleece, and Vermont wool fell into ill- 
repute. Prices went down again, and again the 
descendants of the Paulars and Infantados went 
to the shambles at prices as low as were paid for 
plebeian natives. 



358 VERMONT. 

The wool-growing industry of the East now be- 
gan to find a most formidable rival in the West, the 
Southwest, and Australia, in whose milder climates 
and boundless ranges flocks can be kept at a cost 
far below that entailed by the long and rigorous 
winters of New England, and in numbers that her 
narrow pastures would scarcely fold. At the same 
time lighter duties increased the importation of 
foreign wools, so there was nothing apparently for 
Vermont shepherds to do but to give up the un- 
equal contest, and most of them cast away their 
crooks and turned dairymen. 

But gifted with a wise foresight, a few owners of 
fine flocks kept and bred them as carefully as ever, 
through all discouragements, and in time reaped 
their reward, for it presently became evident that 
the flocks of milder climates soon deteriorate, and 
frequent infusions of Eastern blood are necessary to 
obtain the desired weight of fleece, so that sheep- 
breeding is still a prosperous industry, though, as 
has been stated, wool-growing has become insig- 
nificant. 

Dairy products have largely increased, so that 
now they are far more important than wool among 
the exports, and almost everywhere the broad foot 
of the Jersey, the Ayrshire, the Shorthorn, and 
the Holstein has usurped the place of the " golden 
hoof." 

The butter and cheese of the State were in good 
repute even in the primitive days of the earthen 
milkpan, the slow and wearisome dash-churn, and 



THE VERMONT PEOPLE. 359 

the cheese-press that was only a rough bench and 
lever, as rude in construction as the plumping-mill, 
and when a summer store of ice was a luxury 
that the farmer never dreamed of possessing. The 
simplest utensils and means were in vogue, and 
modern devices and improved methods were un- 
known. The good, bad, and indifferent butter of 
a whole township went as barter to the village 
store, where with little assorting it was packed in 
large firkins, and by and by went its slow way to 
the city markets, in winter in sleighs, in the open 
seasons on lumbering wagons or creeping boats, 
with cargoes of cheese, pork, apples, dried and in 
cider sauce, maple sugar, potash, and all yields of 
farm and forest. Even after such long journeying, 
the mixed product of many dairies retained some 
flavor of the hills that commended it to the palates 
of city folk, and was in favor with them. 

Cheeses were not packed, as now, each in its own 
neat box, but four or five together in a cask made 
especially for the purpose, whose manufacture kept 
the cooper busy many days in the year. His way- 
side shop, with its resonant clangor of driven hoops 
and heaps of fresh shavings piled about it, distilling 
the wholesome odor of fresh wood, was a frequent 
wayside landmark, now not often seen. Cheese 
was the chief product of the dairy, and was always 
home-made, while now it is almost entirely made in 
factories, to which the milk of neighboring dairies 
is brought, but by far the larger part of the milk 
goes to creameries for the making of butter. 



360 VERMONT. 

As the carding, spinning, and cloth-making went ' 
from the household in the day of a former genera- 
tion, and the title of " spinster " became only the des- 
ignation of unmarried women, so the final labor of 
the dairy is being withdrawn from the farm to the 
creamery and cheese factory, to make an even pro- 
duct, better than the worst, if never so good as the 
best, of that of the old system, and the buxom 
dairymaid will exist for coming generations only in 
song and story. 

The enormous mineral wealth of the State lay 
for years hidden or unheeded, copper and copperas 
in the hills of Vershire and Strafford, granite in 
the bald peaks of Barre, slate in long lines of shelv- 
ing ledges here and there, and marble cropping 
out in blotches of dull white among the mulleins 
and scrubby evergreens of barren sheep pastures. 
Some of these resources developed slowly to their 
present importance, others have flourished and lan- 
guished and flourished again, and others sprang 
from respectable existence into sudden importance. 

Copper ore was discovered in Orange County 
about 1820, 1 and was afterwards mined and smelted 
in Vershire, in a small way, hj a company formed 
of residents of the neighborhood and styled the 
u Farmers' Company." In 1853 the mine was 
purchased by residents of New York, who were 
granted a charter under the title of u Vermont Cop- 
per Mining Company," and they began more ex- 
tensive operations under the direction of a skilled 

1 Geology of Vermont 



TEE VERMONT PEOPLE. 361 

Cornish miner. In the years which have elapsed 
since then, the work has at times been actively 
carried on with excellent results, and fifty tons or 
more of superior copper produced each month ; at 
times it has languished, till the populous mining 
village was almost deserted, and neighboring hill 
and vale, scathed by the sulphurous breath of roast- 
bed and furnace, became more desolate than when 
the primeval forest clothed them ; again it has 
seasons of prosperity, when the Vershire vale is as 
populous with Pols, Tres, and Pens as a Cornish 
mining town. 1 Granite, upheaved from the core of 
the world, is found in immense masses in the cen- 
tral portions of the State. At Barre there are 
mountains of it ; though there so overtopped by the 
lofty peaks of Mansfield and " Tah-be-de-wadso," 
they bear such humble names as Cobble Hill and 
Millstone Hill. The pioneer hunters who trapped 
beaver and otter in the wild streams, 2 and the 
settlers who here first brought sun and soil face to 
face, little dreamed that greater wealth than fertile 
acres bear was held in these barren hills. Yet 
something of it became known more than half a 
century ago, and the second State House was built 
of this Barre granite, hauled by teams nine miles 
over the hilly roads. For many years the working 

1 Hearth and Home, October, 1870. 

2 One of the first of these, named Stevens, was found in his 
cabin near the mouth of the stream -which bears his name, dead 
on his piled treasure of rich peltry, with a kettle of unavailing 
medicinal herbs hanging over the ashes of his burned- out fire. 



362 VERMONT. 

of the quarries increased only gradually, but within 
comparatively a few years it has become an im- 
mense business. The hills are noisy with the con- 
stant click of hammer and drill, the clang of ma- 
chinery, and the sullen roar of blasts, and the quiet 
village has suddenly grown to be a busy town, with 
two railroads to bear away the crude or skillfully 
worked products of the quarries. In a single year 
a thousand Scotch families came to this place, 
bringing strong hands skilled in the working of Old 
World quarries to delve in those of the New, and a 
savor of the Scotch highlands to the highlands of 
the New World. 

Slate of excellent quality exists in Vermont in 
three extensive ranges, one in the eastern part of 
the State, another in the central, and another in 
the western- Each is quarried to some extent at 
several points, but the last named most exten- 
sively in Rutland County. Slabs taken from the 
weathered surface rock were long ago used for 
tombstones, and may be seen among the sumacs 
and goldenrods of many an old graveyard, still 
commemorating the spiritual and physical excel- 
lences of the pioneers who sleep beneath them. No 
quarries were opened until 1845, nor was much 
progress made for five years thereafter, when an im- 
migration of intelligent Welshmen brought skilled 
hands to develop the new industry, and made St. 
David a popular saint in the shadow of the Taconic 
hills. 

The existence of marble in Vermont was known 



THE VERMONT PEOPLE. 363 

long ago. On the Isle La Motte, a quarry of 
black marble was worked before the Revolution ; 
and early in the present century, quarries were 
opened in West Rutland, and worked in rude and 
primitive fashion, the slabs so obtained being 
mostly used for headstones. A quarry was opened 
in Middlebury, and it is claimed that the device of 
sawing marble with sand and a toothless strip of 
iron was invented by a boy of that town, named 
Isaac Markham, though in fact it was known to 
the ancients and used by them centuries ago. But 
little more than fifty years ago, the site of the 
great quarries of West Rutland was a barren 
sheep-pasture, shaggy with stunted evergreens, and 
the wealth it roofed was undreamed of, and so 
cheaply valued that the whole tract was exchanged 
for an old horse worth less than one of the huge 
blocks of marble that day after day are hoisted 
from its depths. The working of these quarries 
was begun about 1836, and within ten years there- 
after three companies were formed and in opera- 
tion. But the growth of the business was slow, for 
there were no railroads, and all the marble quar- 
ried had to be hauled by teams twenty-five miles 
to Whitehall, the nearest shipping-point. Further- 
more, its introduction to general use was difficult, 
for though its purity of color and firmness could not 
be denied, its durability wa$ doubted. Fifty years 
of exposure in our variable and destructive climate 
have proved Vermont marble to exceed in this qual- 
ity that of any foreign country. In 1852 a line of 



364 VERMONT. 

railroad running near at hand was completed, and 
the marble business of Rutland began to assume 
something of the proportions which now distinguish 
it as the most important of the kind on the con- 
tinent. 

One of the most remarkable changes in the com- 
merce of Vermont has been in the lumber trade, 
which no longer flows with the current of Cham- 
plain and the Richelieu to Canada, but from the 
still immense forests of the Dominion up these 
waterways to supply the demands of a region long 
since shorn of its choicest timber. Of this great 
trade Burlington is the centre, and one of the 
busiest lumber marts in New England. 

The pine-tree displayed on the escutcheon of Ver- 
mont is now no more significant of the products 
of the commonwealth than is the wheat sheaf it 
bears ; for almost the last of the old pines are gone 
with the century that nursed their growth, and the 
ponderous rafts of spars and square timber that 
once made their frequent and unreturning voyages 
northward have not been seen for more than half 
a century. The havoc of deforesting is not stayed, 
nor like to be while forest tracts remain. The de- 
vouring locomotive, spendthrift waste thoughtless 
of the future, the pulp-mill, and kindred wood- 
consumers gnaw with relentless persistence upon 
every variety of tree growth that the ooze of the 
swamp or the thin soil of the mountain side yet 
nourishes. 

In 1808, only a year after Fulton's successful 



THE VERMONT PEOPLE. 365 

experiment on the Hudson, a steamer was launched 
at Burlington on Lake Champlain, and astonished 
her spectators by her wonderful performance as 
she churned her way through the waters at the 
rate of five miles an hour. In 1815 a company 
was granted the exclusive right of the steam navi- 
gation of Lake Champlain, but the unjust monop- 
oly was presently canceled. In later years the 
steamers of the lake were celebrated for the ex- 
cellence of their appointments and superior man- 
agement, a reputation which they still maintain, 
though the railroads that skirt their thoroughfare 
on either side have drawn from them the greater 
share of the patronage which they once enjoyed. 

All the various industries have been given an 
impetus by the railroad system which now meshes 
the State, and knits it closer to the others of the 
Union. 

With these changes in business and methods, 
and this constant intercourse with all inhabitants 
of the republic, the quaint individuality of the 
earlier people is fast dissolving into commonplace 
likeness, so that now the typical Green Mountain 
Boy of the olden time endures only like an an- 
cient pine that, spared by some chance, rears its 
rugged crest above the second growth, still await- 
ing the tempest or the axe that shall lay it low ; 
} r et as the pine, changing its habit of growth with 
changed conditions, is still a pine, so the Vermonter 
of to-day, when brought to the test, proves to be of 
the same tough fibre as were his ancestors. 



386 VERMONT. 

From the turbulent clay of her birth through the 
period during which she maintained a separate and 
independent existence, and during the hundred 
years that she has borne her faithful part as a mem- 
ber of the great republic, the history of Vermont 
is one that her people may well be proud of. Such 
shall it continue to be, if her sons depart not from 
the wise and fatherly counsel of her first governor, 
" to be a faithful, industrious, and moral people," 
and in all their appointments " to have regard to 
none but those who maintain a good, moral char- 
acter, men of integrity, and distinguished for wis- 
dom and abilities." So may the commonwealth 
still rear worthy generations to uphold and in- 
crease her honorable fame, while her beautiful 
valleys continue, as in the long-past day of their 
discovery, " fertile in corn and an infinitude of 
other fruits." 



INDEX. 



Abercrombie, General, 29, 32. 

Abolitionists, 335. 

Academy, military, 314. 

Adams, Secretary J. S., 311. 

Alien and sedition laws, 261. 

Allen, Ebenezer, captures Mount De- 
fiance, 179 ; frees Dinah Mattis, 183 ; 
at New Haven Fort, 187, 225. 

Allen, Ethan, 03, 68, 69, 76, 78, 84; 
outlawed, 86, 103, 109, 113, 115, 
119 ; petition to king, 99 ; attempt 
to take Montreal by, 121 ; capture 
of, 122 ; return to Bennington of, 
192; pamphlets written by, 198; 
receives letter from B. Robinson, 
204, 207, 212, 226 ; quells rebellion 
in Guilford, 239 ; sent to Cumber- 
land County, 196 ; death of, 258. 

Allen, Herman, 140. 

Allen, Ira, 68, 70, 78; secretary of 
Council of Safety, 165, 167, 199, 201 ; 
commissioner with Fay, 206; com- 
missioner to Isle aux Noix, 208-220, 
224, 265, 313. 

Allen, Parson, at Bennington, 172. 

Amherst, General, 28, 32, 33, 41, 42, 
44. 

Arnold, Benedict, 103, 107, 112, 114 ; 
expedition to Canada of, 125, 128, 
130 ; naval battle of, 134 ; retreat 
of, 136. 

Baker, Rsmember, 71, 72, 111,119; 

at Otter Creek Falls, 78 ; outlawed, 

86. 
B.xrnum, Lieut. Bwnabas, 188. 
Baun, Colonel, 170, 176. 
Beach, Major Gershom, 105. 
Bees, 294. 
Bennington, 54 ; convention at, 64, 67, 

80 ; legislature at, 193. 
Big Bethel, First regiment at, 344. 
Bills of credit, 249. 
Boundary line, settlement of, 252. 
Bowker, Joseph, 146. 
Bradley, Stephen R., pamphlet of, 19S, 

201. 
Brattleboro, 16, 54. 
Breckenridge, James, 65. 



Breyman, 171, 175 ; retreat of, 176. 
Brown, John, 102, 119, 179. 
Burgoyne, Sir John, at the Boquet, 

151 ; proclamation of, 152, 162 ; 

sends Baum to Bennington, 170, 177 ; 

retreat of the army of, 182. 
Burlington, 54 ; lumber trade at, 364 ; 

steamer launched at, 365. 

Canada, expeditions against, 7, 13, 21 ; 
conquest of, 46 ; invasion of, 115- 
131. 

Canal, Champlain, 325; Erie, 325; 
ship, 265. 

Carleton, General, 124, 136 ; at Crown 
Point, 138; threatens Ticonderoga, 
142. 

Carpenter, Isaiah, 66. 

Catamount Tavern, 54, 83, 103. 

Champlain, Lake, 4 ; Waubanakee 
name of, 6; Iroquois name of, 19 ; 
seigniories on, 19. 

Champlaiu, Sieur Samuel, 1. 

Charlestown, 24 ; legislature at, 232. 

Charlotte, County of, 89. 

Chimney Point, 19. 

Chittenden, Gov. Martin, 278, 284. 

Chittenden, Thomas, president of 
Council of Safety, 165, 182, 184; 
appointed governor, 180 ; his letter 
to Washington, 195, 205, 230, 239 ; 
answer to Congress of, 242, 244 ; let- 
ter of, 247, 254 ; death of, 259 ; anec- 
dote of, 321 ; counsel cr, 360. 

Church, Timothy, 239, 240. 

Clark, Col. Isaac, at St. Armand, 276, 
282. 

Clay, Capt. James, 195. 

Clinton, Governor, 225, 226, 230. 

Cockran, Robert, 71, 72. 

Cognahwaghnah Indians, claims of, 
260. 

Colden, Governor, 98. 

Colleges, 313. 

Commissioners of Sequestration ^ 167. 

Committees of Safety, 67, 73, 75, 77 ; 
decrees of, 82 ; answer of, to New- 
York resolutions, 85; "Associa- 
tion" of, 141. 



368 



INDEX. 



Conger, Captain, captures raiders, 352. 
Congress, vacillating course of, 236, 

242. 
Connecticut, letters from, 238. 
Constitution adopted, 14G. 
Controversy between New Hampshire 

and New York, 66-67. 
Copper mines, 360. 
Council of Safety, 150, 170; acts of, 

181, 184, 187. 
Crown Point, fort built by Amherst 

at, 41, 84, 100. 
Cumberland County, 90. 
Cummings, 346. 

Dairying, 358. 

Debeliue's attack on Number Four, 

23. 
Declaration of Independence, 143. 
Deerfield, destruction of, 11. 
Delaplace, Captain, 110, 111. 
Dellius, Godfrey, 47. 
Derby, raid on, 277. 
Dorset, convention at, 139. 
Dummer, Fort, built, 17 ; truck house 

at, 18. 
Dummerston, 91. 

Eaton, Capt. William, 358. 
Election day, 254 ; customs of, 301. 
Enos, General, 216. 
Equivalent lands, 16. 

Fairbanks, Gov. Erastus, proclama- 
tion of, 341. 

Fay, Dr. Jonas, 201, 211, 213. 

Fay, Major Joseph, 206, 211, 214. 

Fay, Capt. Stephen, 75. 

Fees for grants, 81. 

First Brigade, 345. 

Forts, Bridgnuiii^s, 22 ; Crown Point, 
41, .84, 100; Number Four, 23; 
Ranger, 194; St. Anne, 19; St. 
Frederic. 19, 20, 101 ; Ticonderoga, 
26; Venpeancc, 194; Warren, 194. 

Francis, Colonel, 157 ; death of, 159. 

French Canadians, 328. 

French River, 11. 

French, William, murder of, 95. 

Frontenac, expeditions by, 4, 10. 

Fugitive Siave Law, 337. 

Galusha, Gov. Jonas, 268, 333. 
Gates, General, 132, 137. 
Granite quarries, 361. 
Green Mountain Boys, 68. 
Green Mountains, Republic of, 248. 
Gregg, Lieutenant-Colonel, 171. 
Growler and Eagle, loss of, 274. 
Guilford, 238. 

Haldimand, General, 83 ; correspon- 
dence of, 203-221. 
Hale, Colonel, 158. 



Hampton, Gen. Wade, inaction of, 275. 

Hay, Col. Udney, 1S3. 

Heudee, Mrs., 228. 

Henry, John, 269. 

Hyrrick, Captain, captures boats at 
Skeuesborough, 112 ; colonel, 167, 
187 ; receives thanks of council, 183. 

Hobbs, Capt, Humphrey, scout of, 
25. 

Horses, Morgan, 298. 

Houghton, Daniel, 95. 

Howe, Caleb, 22. 

Hubbardton, battle of, 158. 

Indians, forays of, 5 ; routes of, 11 ; 

St. Francis, 33. 
Iroquois, 2 ; Montreal sacked by, 5. 
Isle aux Noix, 33 ; taken by Haviland, 

44 ; conference with British at, 208. 
Izard, General, 283. 

Johnson, Sir John, 225. 
Johnson, Sir William, 26. 

Kent, Cephas, innholder, 139. 

Land embargo, 266. 

Legislature, acts of, 255-257 ; prompt 

calls for troops, 340. 
Libraries, early, 315; endowment of, 

317. 
Lincoln, Abraham, President, 339 ; 

action of, 342. 
Lincoln, General, 169, 181. 
Liquor drinking, 364. 
Louisburg, capture of, 21, 29. 
Lumbering, 364. 
Lydins, John Henry, 47. 

Macdonough, 273 ; builds fleet at Ver- 
gennes, 279 ; fleet of, enters the 
lake, 281 ; naval victory of, 285. 

Mcintosh, Donald, 54, 79. 

Manchester, jail at, 142 ; Stark at, 
168 ; Lincoln at, 169 ; Warner's regi- 
ment left at, 169. 

Marble quarries, 362. 

Massachusetts, claims of, 197. 

Monro, Esquire, 66, 69. 

Monroe, Colonel, 27. 

Montcalm, 26, 31. 

Montgomery, General, 117, 127 ; killed, 
128. 

Montpelier, the capitol at, 264 ; early 
library of, 315. 

Montreal, taken by Amherst, 46 ; at- 
tempt on, by Ethan Allen, 123 ; 
taken by Montgomery, 128. 

Mott, Captain, 103, 105. 

Mount Defiance, 153 ; occupied by 
British, 156 ; taken by Ebenezer 
Allen, 179. 

Mount Independence, 132 ; evacua- 
tion of, 156 ; ibid, by British, 182. 



INDEX. 



369 



New Connecticut, 144. 

New Hampshire, controversy of, con- 
cerning; boundaries, 56 ; obedience 
of, to king, GO, 80 ; prompt action 
of, to repel invasion of Burgoyne, 
166 ; sixteen towns of, join Ver- 
mont, 201, 232, 235. 

New Hampshire Grants, 57-67, 143. 

New York, claims of, 5S, GO ; frontiers 
of, protected by Allen's treaty, 223 ; 
appoints commissioners to treat 
concerning boundary, 251 ; draft 
riots of the city of, quelled by Ver- 
mont troops, 346. 

Newspapers, early, 317. 

Number Four, 22 ; defense of, 23 ; 
road from, to Grown Point, 43. 

Otter, Great, mills destroyed at First 
Falls of, 78 ; fort at, 187 ; Macdon- 
ough's fleet winters in, 279 ; boats 
built at, 279; British attack at 
mouth of, 2S0 ; arsenal at, 341. 

Papers, 318. 

Petowbowk,6. 

Phelps, Charles, 240, 246. 

Phelps, Col. John W., 342; his treat- 
ment of fugitives, 344 ; his procla- 
mation and resignation, 348. 

Phipps, Sir William, 9. 

Plattsburgh, raid on, 275 ; battle of, 
288. 

Plumping-mill, 250. 

Point a la Chevalure, 19, 48. 

Political parties, 261, 270, 333. 

Postal service, 248. 

Prevost, Sir George, 2S3; defeat of, 
290. 

Printers and printing, 317. 

Putnam, Gen. Israel, 30. 

Quebec, 3, 9 ; fall of, 42 ; trade with, 
2G5. 

Ransom, Truman B., 338. 

Reid, Col. John, 76, 79, 88. 

Religious societies, 307. 

Robinson, Col. Beverly, 204, 207. 

Robinson, Moses and Samuel, 211. 

Robinson, Samuel, 62. 

Rogers, Major Robert, expedition of, 

34-41. 
Royalton, Indian massacre at, 227. 

Sancoick, 171, 177, 233. 

Savage's Station, Vermonters at, 345. 

Schools, support of, 309-311 ; laws 

concerning, 311 ; grammar, state, 

normal, 312. 
Schuyler, General, 115, 117, 162; 

favors claims of Vermont, 231. 
Schuyler, Capt. John, 8. 
Schuyler, Major, 9. 



Scott, General, 343. 

Seigniories, 19. 

Sheep, 251 ; importation of merir.o, 
355; breeding of, 358. 

Shelburne, British attack on block- 
house at, 188. 

Sherwood, Captain, 205, 206. 

Skene, Colonel, 88, 105, 170 ; sup- 
posed charter of, 219. 

Skene, Major, 112. 

Slate quarries, 362. 

Slavery prohibited, 147. 

Smuggling, 267. 

Smugglers, device of, 282. 

Sobapsqua, 114. 

Sons of Vermont, 327. 

St. Albans, protest of, 267 ; rebel raid 
on, 351 ; Fenians at, 353. 

St. Anne, Fort, building of, 19. 

St. Clair, General, at Ticonderoga, 
153 ; retreat of, 161. 

St. Frederic, Fort, 19; VaudreuiTs 
expedition from, 20 ; abandoned by 
French, 33. 

St. John's, surrender of, 124. 

St. Leger, General, 21G; abandons 
Ticonderoga, 217. 

Stannard, General, colonel of 9th 
regiment, 348 ; at Gettysburg, 349. 

Stark, Gen. John, 43; at Number 
Four, 166, 168 ; at Bennington, 172. 

Steele, Zadock, 229. 

Stevens, Capt. Phineas, defense by, 23. 

Stoddard, Col. John, 17, 23. 

Sugar-making, 295. 

Sunderland, Peleg, 71, 111. 

Taverns, 321. 

Taxes, payment of, 249. 

Temperance, 322. 

Ten Eyck, Sheriff, G5. 

Tichenor, Governor, 260, 268. 

Ticonderoga, Fort, 26 ; Abercrombie's 
attack on, 29-32 ; captured by Am- 
herst, 32, 84 ; ibid, by Green Moun- 
tain Boys, 100, 103, 183 ; commanded 
by St. Clair, 153 ; commissioners 
sent to, 154 ; evacuation of, 156 ; 
occupied by British, 161 ; evacuated 
by British, 183. 

Tryon, Governor, 73-76, 83; procla- 
mation of, 85. 

Tupper, Sergeant, killed, 216. 

Underground railroad, 34. 

Union of New Hampshire towns, 193 ; 

the west, 202. 
Unions dissolved, 234, 235. 

Valcour, Island of, 134, 135. 
Vaudreuil, expeditions of, 20 ; surren- 
der of Canada by, 46. 
Vergennes, 54, 76. 
Vermont, 145 ; its constitution, 147- 



370 



INDEX. 



187 ; militia of, called out, 226 ; 
agents appointed by, 231; refusal 
of, to break the Unions, 232 ; an 
independent republic, 238 ; included 
in territory of the United States, 
248 ; admission of, to the Union, 253 ; 
unpopularity of war with England 
in, 270 ; raises troops, 272 ; in the 
Mexican war, 338 ; unprepared for 
war in 1861, 340 ; characteristics of 
the people of, 365. 
Vermontensium Res Publica, 248. 

Walbridge, Colonel, and General 
Gansevoort, 233. 

Warner, Seth, 70, 73, 78, 84, 86 ; takes 
Crown Point, 111, 115 ; appointed 
commander of Green Mountain 
Boys, 116, 124 ; recalled to Canada, 
128 ; retreat covered by, 128, 130, 
147 ; New York demands recall of 
commission of, 144 ; repels Indian 
invasion, 154 ; letter of, 154 ; at 
Hubbardton, 157 ; at Bennington, 
175-177 ; death of, 258, 328. 

Washington, General, letter from, 



234 ; opinion of, concerning Ver- 
mont, 244. 

Waters, Constable Oliver, 245. 

Waubanakee, name of, 2. 

Wentworth, Gov. Benning, grants by, 
52, 58, 60. 

Westminster, 54; massacre at, 90, 
240 ; convention at, 98, 142 ; dec- 
laration of independence at, 144, 
179. 

Wilderness, the, country of, 11, 18, 
47, 49. 

Wilkinson, General, movements of, 
277. 

Windsor, convention at, 146 ; first 
legislature at, 191. 

Winooski, 54. 

Winthrop, John, 7. 

Wohjahose, Rock Dunder, 6. 

Wool-growing, 297 ; insignificance of, 
358. 

Wright, Captain, scout of, 18. 

Young, Dr. Thomas, 145, 

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